New York: Tales of reptiles in the sewers have long been part of New York City lore, though they have been largely discounted as urban legend.
But here is the true story of a two-foot-long creature that Joyce Hackett came across in Queens on Sunday afternoon. She was on her way to a store that sells salvaged building materials when she missed her turn for Astoria Boulevard. So she turned around. She pulled up to the intersection of Newtown Avenue and 29th Street when she noticed a police officer and a small crowd of people clustered around a blue car.
She parked her car and got out to see what all the fuss was about. People were pointing under the car and taking pictures. That is when she saw it.
“It was about two feet long,” Ms. Hackett said. “It was like the urban legend washed up from the sewer and says, ‘What the heck am I doing here?’ and hides under a Datsun.”
But angling for a better shot, she stuck her phone down a bit further.
“Be careful!” the officer said, with a bit more urgency.
Then the officer snuck a peek at the pictures on Ms. Hackett’s iPhone and asked her to e-mail them to her.
Ms. Hackett said the officer then made a call asking for some help to wrangle the critter.
The Police Department’s emergency service unit arrived and used a pole to hook and cage the animal and take it to the local precinct station house, said James Duffy, a police spokesman. The police also called Animal Care and Control of New York City to come get the animal.
“We’re not sure if it’s an alligator or a crocodile because we’re not zoologists,” Officer Duffy said. “No one knows where it came from, if it came from the sewer or not.” He called the creature “tiny and harmless.”
“No one had to come and wrestle with it,” he said. “It’s not big enough to eat a dog — maybe a mouse.”
Later on Sunday, Richard Gentles, a spokesman for Animal Care and Control, said the animal was indeed an alligator. Where it came from is unknown. And exactly where it would end up is unclear, but Mr. Gentles said it would most likely go to a licensed rehabilitator or reptile sanctuary. On average, he said, his agency rescues two to four alligators, crocodiles or caimans (a related reptile) in the city every year.
What often happens is that someone brings a small alligator or crocodile north from its natural habitat down south — usually in Florida — to keep as a pet, then dumps it in a pond when it gets too big, said David Quinn, a nuisance wildlife control operator for DQ Pest Control.
In 2006, authorities captured a 15-inch alligator on the grounds of an apartment complex in Brooklyn. And in 2001, a two-foot-long spectacled caiman was discovered living in a lake in Central Park. A reptile hunter was dispatched from Florida, and the caiman was plucked from the water and taken to a zoo.
It is illegal to keep alligators, crocodiles or caimans in homes in New York City. Most of the reptiles that are illegally kept in New York City apartments are certain kinds of snakes, Mr. Quinn said, though every now and then someone decides a baby alligator is cute enough to take home.
Anyone who would do that, he said, is a “real screwball.”
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