The two-foot alligator that has apparently been menacing the waterways of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens has finally been captured. The alligator, nicknamed “Jaws” by the NYPD, was spotted swimming Monday morning by a fisherman. He initially thought it was a rat.
The NYPD — which has been on the case since early August — and the Urban Park Rangers scoured the area Monday, but had no luck until Tuesday afternoon, when the same fisherman, 63-year-old bike mechanic Joe Genovese, noticed a crowd gathered near the edge of one of the park’s ponds.
Jaws was taking a nice little dip.
Genovese rushed to the scene with his fishing pole, which he used to flip and hook the animal and then “wrestled” him out of the pond, where the gator was handed over to NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit. ESU taped its mouth, and the Parks Department shipped it off to Animal Care & Control in Brooklyn. “He put up a fight, it was a good fight,” Genovese told DNAinfo.
The NYPD also shared a clip of the little guy swimming laps and, incidentally, enjoying some of his last moments of freedom.
Jaws is the second alligator taken into custody this summer. The NYPD picked up a reptile trying to cross the road in Upper Manhattan at the end of July. It died shortly after.
