Photo: NYC Parks/AFP via Getty

In this handout photo provided by NYC Parks on February 20, 2023, an approximately 4 foot long alligator is tended to by Parks Enforcement Patrol and Urban Park Rangers, at Prospect Park in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on February 19, 2023. - Alligators inhabit Florida and the humid southeast of the United States: much further north, in New York, one was found alive, but in a very poor condition, in a pond in a Brooklyn park, the city announced on February 20, 2023. The rare discovery of the animal, probably abandoned by its owner, was made Sunday morning in the lake of Prospect Park.

Godzilla the alligator has died.

The world was first introduced to the reptile in February whenthe 4-foot-long alligator was pulled from Prospect Park Lakein Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

A New York City Parks Department maintenance worker first spotted the alligator — later named Godzilla — in Prospect Park Lake. After learning about the sighting, members of the Parks Enforcement Patrol and the Urban Park Rangers pulled the alligator out of the water, according to a Parks Department spokesman.

Godzilla was found “in poor condition” and “very lethargic,” according to a Department of Parks & Recreation statement.

The animal was eventually brought to the Bronx Zoo for care. An X-ray taken during a medical evaluation at the zoo showed the animal, estimated to be between 5 and 6 years old, had ingested a four-inch wide bathtub stopper before her rescue.

Godzilla, a female alligator,was “in too weakened a condition"to have the stopper removed when she first arrived at the New York zoo, but the stopper was successfully extracted later. Unfortunately, Godzilla’s overall health never fully rebounded from the neglect she experienced before she was pulled from Prospect Park Lake. On April 21, the Bronx Zoo announced the alligator had died a few days before.

The alligator — nicknamed Godzilla.Bronx Zoo

Alligator Pulled from Lake in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park

“The alligator found on Sunday, February 19, 2023, in 37-degree Fahrenheit temperature at Prospect Park Lake and taken to the Bronx Zoo has died. Despite extensive ongoing medical treatment, nutritional support, and the successful removal of a bathtub stopper she had ingested while illegally kept as a pet, the alligator died on Sunday, April 16,“the Bronx Zoo shared in a statement.

The Bronx Zoo believes that before Godzilla ended up in Prospect Park Lake, she was kept illegally as a pet in New York City and underwent abuse and neglect, leading to her poor physical condition.

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“This was a tragic case of animal abuse. Alligators and other wild animals do not belong in the pet trade or in people’s homes. This alligator suffered and died because its owner decided to dump her in a frigid lake in an extremely debilitated state rather than provide her with the veterinary care that could have saved her. Wild animals are not pets,” the Bronx Zoo concluded its statement.

source: people.com