Dozens of alligators scrubbed, 3 euthanized after massive diesel spill that killed thousands of animals near New Orleans

Wildlife rehabilitators are decontaminating dozens of alligators, brushing their pointy teeth and scrubbing their scaly hides in the weeks after a pipeline rupture dumped 300,000 gallons of diesel fuel into a New Orleans area wetland. Three alligators that were caught in deep diesel had to be euthanized, officials said.

Diesel poured into the area outside New Orleans suburb Chalmette on December 27 after a severely corroded pipeline broke, according to federal records.

Seventy-eight alligators have since been rescued, and 33 of them had been cleaned and released by Friday into a national wildlife refuge located in New Orleans and about 10 miles from the spill site in St. Bernard Parish, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said.