Paul Christiansen
The American Alligator is one of the world's biggest conservation success stories.
As a cultural symbol, alligators are as synonymous with Louisiana as gumbo or Mardi Gras. These cold blooded reptiles thrive in our wetlands, and in nearly every body of water across the region, you can see a pair of eyes watching from the surface’s edge. Covered head-to-toe in body armor, they have existed for 245 million years, even surviving the asteroid responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs. Yet, at one time, humans decimated the population to near extinction.
Today, though, there are around 3.5 million alligators in Louisiana—nearly as many as people—thanks to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) alligator conservation program, which many deem one of the most successful on the planet.
“It’s the quintessential example of a conservation recovery success story,” said Jeb Linscombe, LDWF fur and alligator program manager. “Because hides primarily go out of the country, they are protected under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. When they meet, they actually use the Louisiana alligator recovery as a conservation success story.”
Louisianans have hunted alligators since the 1800s, both for their hides and their meat. Driven by the overseas market, the reptiles were over-harvested in the twentieth century. The main draw was their leather, which was made into high-end luxury items such as shoes, belts, and watch straps. A lucrative business for hunters, it proved devastating to alligators. By the 1950s, only about 100,000 remained in Louisiana.
[Read this: Busting the the myth of Ned McIlhenny's nineteen foot, world record-breaking alligator]
In 1962, the state made it illegal to hunt them, and even though the population began to rebound, in 1967 alligators were included in the very first list of seventy-five endangered species created under the Endangered Species Preservation Act, the first federal legislation of its kind.
During this time, LDWF began researching the reptiles, studying their habitat and nesting behaviors, and recognizing the importance of the wetlands to their survival. The department developed a plan to work with private landowners, who own eighty percent of coastal wetlands in the state, to harvest alligators sustainably while providing incentives to protect the wetland habitats. Starting in Cameron Parish in 1972, LDWF opened an experimental controlled wild harvest program.
A few years later, in 1979, CITES began requiring every single alligator exported overseas to have a tag. According to Linscombe, this effectively eliminated the black market harvest. In 1981, the alligator was reclassified from endangered to threatened in Louisiana, and LDWF opened the controlled harvest to the whole state. In 1987, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service officially removed it from the federal list of endangered species. Today, alligator hunters harvest an average of 24,000 alligators each year.
Paul Christiansen
Royce McMullen, a tour guide at Insta-Gator Ranch, showcasing one of the gators raised there.
During their research, LDWF discovered part of the population’s challenges could be drawn back to the high mortality rate of baby alligators, which are susceptible to disease and predation. As Royce McMullen, a tour guide at Insta-Gator Ranch in Covington, described, “Everything likes to eat baby alligators. They’re like little hot dogs with legs. Only about six to eight out of a hundred make it in the wild.” In captivity, however, their chances of survival are much higher, around ninety percent.
Armed with this knowledge, in 1986 LDWF supplemented the controlled wild harvest with the state’s first alligator ranching program. Female alligators lay their eggs in late June and early July. After July 4, licensed alligator farmers harvest eggs from the wild, incubate and hatch them, and raise the babies in captivity.
“I would get up at 4 am and take off at 5:30 in an ultralight airplane,” said Insta-Gator Ranch owner John Price, who started taking part in the ranching program in 1989. He still raises alligators but has recently retired from flying. “I would fly all day, locating nests, throwing out a cane pole from the plane to mark the spot. An airboat would go along behind me and start picking up the eggs.”
For alligators, the temperature determines the sex of the baby. Warmer temperatures of 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit and above produce males, while cooler temperatures below 86 degrees Fahrenheit produce females. Insta-Gator incubates the eggs in between the two extremes to generate a mix, as well as healthier, faster-growing animals. These hatch between August 12 and September 6.
“In the beginning of the program, we had a lot of people with small, experimental operations,” said Linscombe, who explained the program has dropped from 120 to around thirty ranchers. “A small number were more successful, so the numbers dropped. There are a limited number of eggs to collect and a limited market for the hides, but the farming program is the largest it’s ever been right now. We saw a downturn in the market with [the Coronavirus pandemic], and we’re still working through it, but I’d still say it’s as big of an industry now as ever.”
When they hatch, the alligator babies are around nine inches long. Ranchers raise them for a year or two until they reach three to five feet in length, at which point some are re-released into the wild. At this size, their chances of survival are much higher. Farm-raised alligators are tagged, tail-notched, sexed, and measured before they are released into the wild.
Paul Christiansen
“The research at the time thought seventeen percent was a good number to release back into the wild,” said Linscombe, clarifying that LDWF is not looking for a target population but rather a stable one. “As the population continued to increase, the [release] number decreased.” Now only five percent of alligators hatched in captivity are released back into the wild. The rest are harvested for their hide and meat, just like chickens, pigs, and other farm-raised animals.
“In my opinion, it’s the best program of protection on the planet,” said Price. “There were 100,000 when it first started. Now we have 2.5 million in the wild and another million on farms. Funding [for the program] comes from consumption.”
As the population has rebounded, the alligator has become an effective ambassador of Louisiana's cultural identity. Visitors come from around the world to see the reptiles up close, taking airboat tours in the swamp or visiting places like Insta-Gator, which has shifted its primary focus from ranching to tourism. In the early days of the program, Insta-Gator raised the alligators to grow to a size of three to five feet in length. This not only was the required size to release them in the wild but also an ideal size for harvesting for leather, as the hides of the smaller gators have tighter grain. When they opened the property for tours in 2001, though, visitors started inquiring about seeing larger alligators.
“The breeders are in the wild, so we didn’t need big alligators here,” explained Price, whose business generally ranges between housing 1,000 and 3,500 gators at any given time. “But people came looking for them, so we started raising big alligators. Now we focus on tourism and less on alligator ranching. There are no other ranchers making an effort to educate like we are here.”
Today, visitors to Insta-Gator not only view the alligators up close but hold and feed them as well—all while learning about Louisiana’s conservation program. As part of their educational initiatives, visitors can even assist a baby alligator as it hatches from its egg.
Since launching the alligator management program, LDWF cites an overall harvest of over 1.1 million wild alligators, a collection of over 11 million alligator eggs, and the sale of about 7.3 million farm-raised alligators. It’s a success story talked about across the globe, replicated in countries from Africa to Australia and China, and seen first-hand in the wetlands of Louisiana.
Learn more about LDWF’s alligator management program at wlf.louisiana.gov.
Book an alligator tour or hatching experience at Insta-Gator at insta-gatorranch.com.
