Visitors to a park in Brooklyn, New York, were enjoying their weekend when they spotted something extremely worrying — a four-foot alligator, floating in a pond not far from where families and children play.
The alligator was spotted off the shore of Duck Island by a passerby. That individual notified the city.
“It’s totally unexpected,” Joseph Puleo, the vice president of District Council 37, which includes the park, told the New York Post.
He noted that the alligator “wasn’t really moving at all,” possibly because winter in New York is significantly cooler than the tropical climate the reptile needs to stay healthy.
City workers successfully removed the alligator from the pond and transported it to an animal care facility for examination and treatment.
The New York Animal Care Centre, where the reptile is being treated, has taken to calling the creature "Godzilla," according to Spectrum News 1.
"Parks are not suitable homes for animals not indigenous to those parks-domesticated or otherwise," a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation said in a statement. "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."
The department noted that the alligator could have been cold-shocked from the chilly water.
Megan Lalor, a spokesperson for the Parks Department, told the New York Post that the alligator was likely dumped in the water by someone who previously owned it as a pet.
The law prohibits the dumping of animals into city parks in New York, according to the parks department.
Owning an alligator is also illegal in New York City, but that hasn’t stopped residents from keeping exotic animals in the dense, urban environment before.
In 2003 a tiger named “Ming” made national headlines after it was found living inside a Harlem apartment. Ming’s owner also had been keeping an alligator — named Al — inside one of the bedrooms.
