News-Press.com
Record numbers
expected for gator hunting
Gator hunters will hit the swamps Wednesday night
in record numbers for the statewide public waters alligator harvest.
“No one expected 4,300,” state alligator management biologist Steve Stiegler
said of the number of alligator permit buyers, up 1,500 from last year’s
record.
Alligator hunting has morphed from a strictly commercial enterprise to an almost
totally recreational pursuit since Florida began its public waters hunts in
1988.
“It’s for the sport,” said Scott Qurollo, 38, of Cape Coral. The
advertising agency creative director bought his alligator trapper’s license
online for hunting Lake Istokpoga in Highlands County this season.
“It’s a blast, and there’s camaraderie with your buddies. There’s
nothing like it, running around in an airboat and harpooning gators.
“It’s not like sitting in a deer stand. It’s a lot more fast-paced. And
it’s at night, which adds a little excitement to it, as well,” said Qurollo,
who has been hunting alligators for seven years.
Florida residents paid $271.50 for a trapping license and two alligator hide
validation tags, and nonresidents paid $1,021.50. They will hunt specific dates
beginning one-half hour before sunset tonight through Nov. 1, in one of 124
alligator management units including public waters in Lee County and the
Caloosahatchee River between the Franklin and Ortona locks.
The increase in the number of permitees was due to a revamped allocation process
after a debacle last year. Computer glitches in 2006 allowed 935 commercial
hunters to buy as many as 95 permits each, freezing out many sport hunters.
This year no hunters were allowed to buy additional permits during the first
week of sales. During the second week 192 trappers bought additional permits,
until the hunt was sold out at 4,492 permits for 8,984 harvest tags.
“The permitting process did what we wanted it to do,” Stiegler said. “It
allowed people who wanted to have an alligator trapping license the chance to
get it without having to compete with people who wanted additional permits.
“We got a handful of complaints,” Stiegler said of would-be commercial
trappers and gator hunting guides. “But I think those people sort of expected
this to be the case. They knew we had taken steps to maximize the number of
people participating in the program.”
Those who would participate in the hunt with a permit holder can buy an
alligator trapping agent license for $51.50.
Sales of permits and agent licenses so far total about $1.2 million for the Fish
and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The commission has no estimate on the economic impact of the hunts, but hunters
often offset expenses of equipment, fuel and lodging by selling alligators to
processors. Hides and meat are resold to local and foreign markets for
conversion to shoes, handbags and the ubiquitous “gator bites” at sports
bars.
All American Gator Products of Pembroke Pines has set prices for whole
alligators on its Web site, alligatorskinsdirect.com. Hunters can meet All
American agents at a number of drop-off points around southern Florida, where
they can sell their gators or where the processor will take the gator for
skinning and butchering.
Whole gators will be bought according to the yield of hides and meat, ranging
from $12 per foot for gators between 5 and 6 feet, to $32 per foot for gators
longer than 12 feet. A 5-foot gator yields about 5 pounds of meat, compared to
an average of 60 pounds of meat from a 12-footer.
Hunters are hopeful this year's drought will have large gators concentrated in
deep waters where they will be accessible. The reflection of a light from an
alligator's eyes, called eyeshine, is easily visible over open water, but hard
to detect in reedy marshes.
Ski Olesky, whose primary business at Lake Trafford Marina & Campground in
Immokalee is ecotour airboat rides, has grave concerns about how low water will
affect his business.
“The water is so low, the alligators will be sitting ducks right out in the
lake. They’re destroying my business because they’re taking all of the big
alligators out of there,” Olesky said.
Olesky said it’s big gators tourists want to see, and disappointing numbers of
large bulls, over 9 feet, reduces repeat business from locals and tourists from
all over the world.
“If it’s for the lousy 8 or $9,000 they get for the alligator permits (sold
for the Lake Trafford unit), it’s ridiculous to kill them.
“I bring a lot of people into a small town and send them a lot of places, to
buy gas, to eat and everything else. Everybody’s going to suffer because of
this,” Olesky said.
Stiegler said alligator hunters do target the largest gators, filling about 75
percent of tags while averaging 8-1/2-foot gators in the process. But he said
there is an abundance of adult alligators, over about 6 feet, in Lake Trafford.
“Lake Trafford has the highest density of alligators of any water body where
we conduct alligator surveys,’’ he said.
“He may be right in that there may be a shortage of alligators 12 foot and up.
But the density of adult alligators on Lake Trafford is very high.”