Having gone through a similar situation as Peanut the squirrel and his owner Mark Longo, former alligator owner Tony Cavallaro warned other wild animal owners about the threats of the DEC.
After Peanut the squirrel was euthanized on October 30, Albert the alligator’s owner Tony Cavallaro warned wild animal owners, saying the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was targeting “innocent” people.
“I think there’s a bigger plan behind all this,” Cavallaro told the New York Post. “They’re going after innocent people to see how far they can get away with us.”
Cavallaro continued, “They are just [a] dirty, dirty organization. I don’t know what they’re trying to do to us, but there is no justification.”
Cavallaro went on to sympathize with Peanut’s owner Mark Longo, saying he was “so sorry” for what he went through. Being a former owner of a wild animal himself, Cavallaro added that he knows what it’s like when there is nothing you can do.
In March, Cavallaro’s 750-pound pet alligator, Albert, was seized from his New York home. Like Longo, Cavallaro compared his raid from the DEC to a drug bust.
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“What reason do they have to go to this extreme? They had full body armor [and] two assault shotguns… it looks like a DEA drug bust of some kingpin. They looked like a SWAT team for a terrorist attack.”
Cavallaro had owned the 34-year-old alligator since he was 2 months old. Reports about him allowing onlookers into Albert’s enclosed pool are what ultimately led to the DEC taking him.
Currently, Albert resides in an adventure park in Texas. Cavallaro, however, is working to have him transferred to a sanctuary where he knows Albert will enjoy his life.
As for Peanut, a woman on TikTok is now receiving death threats after netizens claimed she reported Longo to the DEC. Though it wasn’t her, someone with a similar name was allegedly the one to report Peanut and Longo.
“It’s a very sad situation, and my heart goes out to them. But it wasn’t me. And, was this really the way we thought we should handle it anyways?” the woman said on TikTok.
