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Four-Foot-Long Alligator Rescued from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Lake

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Edited by: Jared Evan with AP

An alligator was found in a chilly New York City Lake on Sunday, far from the subtropical and tropical climates where such creatures thrive, AP reported.

The 4-foot (1.2-meter) reptile was pulled from Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn and taken to an animal care center and then the Bronx Zoo for medical treatment and rehabilitation, AP reported.

City officials said the gator appeared lethargic and possibly cold shocked. It was likely dumped as an unwanted pet, they said. Releasing animals in city parks is illegal. Police are investigating.

For years, New Yorkers have pondered the myth that alligators roam the city’s sewer system, even celebrating Alligators in the Sewers Day as an unofficial February holiday, AP writes.

Sightings like Sunday’s help keep the urban legend alive, but experts throw cold water on the sewer theory. Alligators aren’t suited to the sewer system’s frigid, toxic environment, they say.

The alligator was taken to Animal Care Centers and then brought to the Bronx Zoo for rehabilitation, officials said. No one was harmed while recovering the alligator., PIX 11 reported.

Adult male American alligators measure 3.4 to 4.6 m (11.2 to 15.1 ft) in length, and can weigh up to 450 kg (1,000 lb), with unverified sizes of up to 5.84 m (19.2 ft) and weights of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) making it one of the largest members of the family Alligatoridae, alongside the black caiman.

“Parks are not suitable homes for animals not indigenous to those parks—domesticated or otherwise,” the spokesperson from the NY Parks department told PIX 11 . “In addition to the potential danger to park goers this could have caused, releasing non-indigenous animals or unwanted pets can lead to the elimination of native species and unhealthy water quality.”

“It wasn’t moving very much. It was heavy, but it wasn’t as hard to wrangle it as I thought it would be because it was so still,”  New York City park ranger Judith Velosky told PIX11, who assisted in the transport.

“Learn about New York City wildlife and the importance of keeping our ecosystems in balance and not releasing anything that doesn’t belong here,” Velosky said.

“People get these animals to show off,” Vinny Ritchie, a reptile expert in New York City told PIX 11

“They don’t care about what’s going to happen a year or two from now. Who’s going to be able to care for this? Is it a good pet to have?”

This unusual story immediately drew parallels to the 1980 low budget horror hit “Alligator”. The film ,set in Chicago,  film follows a police officer and a reptile expert who track an enormous, ravenous man-eating alligator flushed down the toilet years earlier, that is attacking residents after escaping from the city’s sewers.

The baby alligator survives by feeding on the discarded carcasses of animals used in illegal experimentation and dumped into the sewers. These animals had been used as test subjects for an experimental growth formula intended to increase agricultural livestock meat production. However, the project was abandoned because while the formula had the desired effect of making the animals larger than normal, it had the unwanted side effect of massively increasing the animals’ metabolism, causing them to develop an insatiable appetite, according to IMDB’s summary of the horror film.

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