By Alligators are a common enough sight in Florida. But in a New York parking lot? Rare. At least until two showed up at a Pathmark supermarket parking lot on Long Island two days in a row: a 2- to 3-foot-long gator on Tuesday, and then a 3- to 4-foot-long one on Wednesday.
Luckily, responding officers were able to catch the animals and turn them over to the Emergency Services Unit.
While some gators are welcome, even making a splash at kids' pool parties (it's true, check out the video), these alligators on the loose are definitely doing a good job of scaring the locals.
There seems to be a trend in the area: An alligator was found on a front lawn at a Mastic beach home last Friday. And in Brooklyn last week, a 3-foot pet gator was discovered in a couple's apartment along with loaded guns. (For anyone thinking that having an alligator for a pet in New York City is a great idea, think again: It's illegal.)
Unfortunately for the pet gator, police were quoted as saying the animal "didn't look very good" and may have been starved by its owners. It was picked up by the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine.
Those with knowledge of why the heck so many gators are running amok in Nassau County are asked to contact the Nassau County SPCA, which is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people responsible for releasing the alligators in the Pathmark lot.
Meanwhile, those two parking lot gators will be sent to a reptile sanctuary in Florida.