{"id":111283,"date":"2025-09-01T06:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T06:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/111283\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T06:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T06:20:13","slug":"alligator-found-on-long-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/111283\/","title":{"rendered":"Alligator found on Long Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

Send in the special investi-gator!<\/p>\n

An alligator was discovered this month in a freshwater pond in Freeport, Long Island \u2014 part of a growing trend of exotic, non-native pets being dumped in the region. <\/p>\n

The juvenile, roughly two-foot-long gator was found by a birdwatcher on Aug. 7 at the Cow Meadow Preserve, a 150-acre preserve located in Cow Meadow Park.<\/p>\n

\"ECOECP officers reported to Cow Meadow Preserve to transport the animal to a rehabilitation facility. Department of Environmental Conservation<\/p>\n

Three Environmental Conservation Police officers arrived by canoe and brought the reptile to a rehabilitation facility in the area, where it awaits relocation, officials said. <\/p>\n

An investigation is underway to find the individual who released the animal since it\u2019s illegal to import, possess, or sell any alligator, caiman, or crocodile without proper DEC permits in the state of New York. <\/p>\n

Frank Floridia, president of Strong Island Animal Rescue League<\/a>, told The Post that he\u2019s seen a recent trend of Long Islanders getting exotic animals as pets and then dumping them \u2014 which he said poses a threat to both humans and the environment.<\/p>\n

\"AerialFreeport is located in Nassau County, Long Island, just over 30 miles away from Manhattan. Audley C Bullock\/Wirestock Creators \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

His group recently got a call about a tegu lizard \u2014 which are native to South America and can grow to 4.5 feet long and weigh 20 pounds \u2014 on the loose in Centereach. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to be here. It\u2019s very dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we ended up catching that. It was pretty big, like four feet long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Send in the special investi-gator! An alligator was discovered this month in a freshwater pond in Freeport, Long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[13715,62896,49,48,36767,9929,66,323],"class_list":["post-111283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-alligators","tag-animal-rescue","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-long-island","tag-metro","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}