Attention, Staten Islanders: Did You Lose Your Alligator?

Police have handed the gator, named Charlie, over to the Brooklyn Animal Care Shelter.

Listen, the risk you run with a bathtub gator is that, one day, it's going to grow too big and too strong, and then it will clamber out of its makeshift lagoon using just its scaly little man hands. It will do this either of its own volition or because you, the terrified pet-owner in way too far over their head, decide that your New York City home is no place for a large prehistoric lizard. In any case, the bottom line remains the same: You accidentally loosed your illegal alligator on an environment totally unaccustomed to and unprepared for this species, and now it's creating chaos within the community. The Staten Island community, specifically.

On Tuesday, Staten Island resident Don Walters was scouring a park for worms to use as fishing bait when he spied something both strange and familiar "splashing in the water," he told the SI Advance. "I thought it was a muskrat," Don recalled, but then he saw its slitted marble eyes rise above the surface. Originally a Florida Man, Walters knew his adversary immediately, and rose to the occasion. He ran home, grabbed a sturdy net, and returned to the park, luring the gator to the water's edge and scooping it out. Walters and his wife, Kim, christened the three-foot lizard king Charlie, before taping its snout closed for safety.

"I just kind of taped it around about six times," Kim told the NY Post. "He [Don] said, 'That's good' and I went, 'Nope, I think I'll do it a couple more times.'"

Then the couple called 311, where they reportedly received zero answers as to what the appropriate thing to do with a found alligator might be. "So I called 911," Don told the Post. "They came real quick."

According to the Advance, "dozens" of officers swarmed the scene "within minutes," and took Charlie into custody. He did not resist, and to judge from the footage posted to Citizen App, looked pretty content just to have someone hold him.

Let's lean in for a closer look:

Hi, Charlie. (Citizen App)

As to how Charlie wound up on Staten Island, the working theory is that someone released their unsanctioned pet into the woods after it became too unwieldy. That's how the experts believe Chicago got Chance the Snapper, and in other Staten Island gator situations (there have been a few), illegal ownership has been to blame.

Still, don't worry, Charlie is thriving. "It looked real healthy. No wounds on it. Nothing," Don told the Post. "He was hungry through. Definitely hungry."

The NYPD handed Charlie over to the Brooklyn Animal Care Shelter, so if you're missing your alligator, come get your man. (A joke, please don't.)