[ad_1]
Four-foot alligator is found swimming in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park lake near to where children play
- The gator was pulled from the Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn at around 9.00am Sunday morning after a stunned passerby called park workers to the scene
- The gator was lethargic and moving slowly due to the frigid temperatures of the lake waters – gators are native to warm, tropical climates
- A Parks Department representative said the creature had likely been abandoned by an owner who had grown dissatisfied with it as a pet
A slow moving, frigid alligator was pulled from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Lake Sunday morning after a passerby spotted the creature floating in the chilly waters.
The New York Post reports city park workers were shocked and, like witnesses to the scene, are wondering how the reptile got into the lake.
‘It’s totally unexpected,’ said Joseph Puleo, the vice president of District Council 27, which represents the park workers who ended up pulling the gator from the depths of the lake and corralling it to safety.
Pule told the outlet that his team was notified of the gator’s presence this morning ‘by someone who saw it.’
The call was made around 8.30am Sunday morning after the creature of the deep was spotted near Duck Island’.
The alli8gator was spotted at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Lake on Sunday morning
The large animal was captured after being spotted in the waters
Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn, where a 4-foot-long alligator was pulled from the frigid waters early Sunday morning
The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn at Prospect Park
A Cormorant perches near Duck Island in Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn, almost exactly where the gator was found
‘It wasn’t moving really at all,’ he noted.
The 4-foot-long gator may have been feeling lethargic due to the cold temperatures of the lake water.
Workers removed the not-so-quick crawler and brought it to the Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Meghan Lalor, a representative for the Parks Department, said the Prospect Park gator was likely a pet who became unwanted or outgrew its space and was subsequently released into public waters.
‘Thankfully, no one was harmed, and the animal is being evaluated,’ she said.
‘In this case, the animal was found very lethargic and possibly cold-shocked since it is native to warm, tropical climates.’
It is always a dangerous idea to release non-native animals into unknown environments to which they may not be able to acclimate.
The gator incident comes less than a month after a malnourished non-native pigeon that had been dyed pink was found wandering around Madison Square Park in downtown Manhattan.
The Wild Bird Fund ultimately determined that the bird – given the name Flamingo – had been deliberately dyed, and possibly used as part of a gender reveal, an experiment, or wedding party, prompting employees to release a statement:
‘Please never release domestic birds to the wild. Not for weddings, funerals, celebrations, art projects, anything. (We’d hope that ‘don’t dye them’ goes without saying, but…) They will starve or be preyed on,’ they wrote.
The Wild Bird Fund added that it seemed the bird had never flown before and was likely purchased at a poultry market. The bird also showed signs of long-term malnutrition.
Flamingo, the group said, would be unable to survive in the wild because it cannot find food, fly well or escape predators.
‘I don’t think we’ve ever really had a pink pigeon come into the clinic, so we were all pretty surprised,’ said Antonio Sanchez of the Wild Bird Fund. ‘We were honestly disgusted that someone would do this.’
‘If you see an all-white pigeon in the wild, or any tame bird standing around looking lost, it needs your help. Please catch the bird and bring it to a pigeon rescue or animal sanctuary near you,’ wrote the group.
[ad_2]
Source link
