Let’s GO Alligator Hunting in Florida

 
If you are the adventurous type and want to trap a couple of Florida alligators this year, time is running out.  The Florida Wildlife Commission is taking applications for permits until the end of this month only for the 6000 permits and harvest tags being issued for 2009.  A drawing will be held in July and many would-be  hunters will be disappointed again this year.

The season runs from August 15 through November 1 this year.   State residents will pay $271.50 for the permit and tag–non-residents will be charged $1,021.50.  If you’re going to require a guide with a boat and the necessary equipment plan on shelling out up to $3,000.00 for a two-night hunt but this includes fees.

The season applies to public land hunts where permittees are assigned specific bodies of water from which to extract their prey. They may take two alligators each.  Private land hunts are year round with certain restrictions with regard to size during the mating season which runs from March 31 till the end of August.

Mating season is the period when the reptiles are likely to be found in locations not normally considered their habitat, such as carports, mall parking lots and crossing roadways.  Gators travel from one water source to another in search of that perfect one night stand.

 Alligator hunting is done only at night in Florida.  (Other states, primarily Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi also have organized hunts and rules there may be different.)  It’s a super idea to have an experienced trapper on board because a trophy animal can weigh up to a half ton and it  will not be happy to be snared, harpooned or arrowed.  Once hauled to boatside a bangstick is used to dispatch the catch.  A bangstick is a long-handled tool with a .44 caliber explosive device on the end that is placed directly on the alligator’s head.  Then work to load the creature has to be done quickly as the gator will sink like a rock. 

Spanish explorers called the reptile El Lagato (the lizard) but English settlers understood it to be alligator.  Close enough.  The largest gator trapped in the Sunshine State measured 17′5″ in length.  The state record for a permitted hunt is 14′5/8″.

In the early days of Florida tourism, alligator wrestling was common at numerous roadside stops but that now is limited mostly to the Everglades area.  We were once told that by turning a gator over on its back you could put it to sleep by hyptnotism.  We later learned that the animals’ small brain is in a large cavity and drops from center when upside down causing unconsciousness. 
 

The federal government  placed the alligator on the endangered list in 1967 but the animals made such a remarkable comeback that they were removed from the list 20  years later.  The state now contracts licensed trappers to roundup many nuisance gators each year that become a threat to humans or pets.  The biggest problem is with people feeding the animals around their lakeside homes  so that they lose their fear of humans .