(photo courtesy of Louisiana Office of Tourism)
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is hailing its first-ever recreational alligator hunting season. Throughout the month-long season last month, more than 3,600 hunters harvested more than 1,800 alligators. Franklin Senator Robert Allain wrote the bill to allow the recreational hunting of alligators.
“A lot of people are going to harvest these for food, and then they have the option to use the other parts,” Allain said. “A lot of people take the head and will bring that to the taxidermist.”
The average harvest size was 7.5 feet.
LDWF is already starting to plan for next year’s recreational alligator hunting season. This year, they offered as many as 10,000 tags, and Senator Allain said he feels that’s an appropriate number.
“I don’t think they maxed out 2,000 to 10,000, so I would be comfortable with leaving it where it is and getting another year of data as the program becomes more popular,” he said.
Allain said the best part about the new recreational alligator hunting season is that it brings generations of families together, as evidenced by a Facebook post of a constituent he came across.
“His father, who brought him hunting alligators, they gave up the tags, and then his son was able to harvest his first alligator,” Allain said. “So, you had three generations of a family that (were) able to pass on that tradition.”
The legislature approved the recreational hunting of alligators because the state is starting to become overrun with alligators. In fact, there are an estimated three-million alligators in Louisiana – about two-thirds of the state’s human population.
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