Overview

• A local birdwatcher reported the roughly two-foot juvenile on Aug. 7 at Cow Meadow Preserve in Freeport, Nassau County.
• Two Environmental Conservation Police officers and a lieutenant canoed to the pond to capture it and took it to a licensed rehabilitator.
• The animal remains at the facility awaiting relocation to a permanent home, officials said.
• New York requires DEC permits to import, possess, or sell alligators or other crocodilians, and investigators are seeking whoever released it.
• A local rescue leader warned of a rise in abandoned exotic pets on Long Island, citing a recent capture of a roughly four-foot tegu lizard in Centereach.