Sewer Gators: Alligators Invade New York City

New Yorkers grow up hearing stories about the alligators that supposedly live in the sewers -- but no one ever expects to actually see one.

Sewer gators are an old myth ... but this week, that myth got a little more real when gators began crawling out of and back into manholes throughout the city.

Thankfully, however, they were not the kind that bite.

The gators were actually highly realistic sculptures, like the one pictured above, set up around town to promote the new season of History's "Swamp People."

As you might guess, the show is about people who live in the swamp -- actually the Louisiana bayou -- and hunt alligators for a living.

In addition to the sculptures, New Yorkers were treated to samples of Cajun cuisine as a food truck popped up around town serving dishes such as fricassee of swamp rabbit, alligator sauce piquante and nutria sausage.

Nutria, in case you were wondering, is a web-footed rodent of unusual size.

Of course, any gator hunter who hopes to make a living in New York will leave disappointed -- because reports of large populations of the reptiles living in the sewers are nothing but a croc.

"We've all heard it," wrote Barbara Mikkelson, co-founder of the Snopes.com urban legends website. "And it ain't true."

Mikkelson writes on the site's gator page that the reptiles couldn't live in the New York winter, nor could they survive on a steady diet of sewage.

City officials agree.

"I could cite you many cogent, logical reasons why the sewer system is not a fit habitat for an alligator," John T. Flaherty told the New York Times in 1982. "But suffice it to say that, in the 28 years I have been in the sewer game, neither I nor any of the thousands of men who have worked to build, maintain or repair the sewer system has ever seen one, and a 10-foot, 800-pound alligator would be hard to miss."

On the other hand, gators and crocodiles do turn up on city streets from time to time, like this one found under a car in Queens last year. The city's Animal Care and Control told NY1 that the department rescues between two and four a year.

But they're usually escapees from zoos and pet stores.

In other words, there's nothing to worry about in the sewers ... except for the occasional C.H.U.D.