BATON ROUGE – Bills creating an annual recreational alligator season from October through December have begun advancing through the state Legislature this week.
Following the passage of Senate Bill 244 on Monday to establish a recreational alligator hunting season, Rep. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, presented a tandem bill creating the licensing and fees associated with the potential hunting season to the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee. The bill passed favorably with amendments, but its sister bill in the Senate is expected to face opposition when it reaches the House committee.
The bills, if passed, would create a recreational alligator hunting season from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, which would dovetail with the booming commercial industry in the state.
The legislation is a response to a resurgence of the alligator population, which has had a large rebound in recent decades after the species was placed on the endangered list and hunting was banned in the 1960s. Since then, the population has made a full recovery, with more than 2 million wild alligators in the state, according to the LSU AgCenter.
“This industry has been so successful in conservation and bringing the American alligator back from, really, the brink of extinction here in Louisiana,” said Cole Garrett, general counsel for Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries. “I think it's one of the greatest conservation success stories we have.”
With the abundance of alligators, the Wildlife and Fisheries Department saw a recreational season as an additional opportunity to control the gator population and to offer another activity for hunters in the state, Garrett said.
Riser’s bill would allow Louisiana residents to enter a lottery to purchase alligator-hunting licenses and tags. An amendment was added to the bill Tuesday during the committee meeting allowing non-residents to purchase licenses but on a restricted basis, meaning non-resident license holders could accompany residents on hunting trips to get the experience.
Resident licenses would be $50, with an additional $25 annual fee, and non-resident licenses would be $150.
“They could participate in the harvest, but they would not be issued a tag,” Garrett said.
The licensing revenue will be earmarked for the state Conservation Fund, which works as the Wildlife and Fisheries general fund for nondiscretionary spending and helps pay salaries for employees such as enforcement agents and biologists, Garrett said.
While the bill passed through the committee, it faced various questions on logistics, such as fee prices, and opposing comments from lobbyists.
Rep. Domangue, R-Houma, read an email she received from the chairman of the Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council, who is a resident of her district, expressing concerns that “the idea of a recreation season hasn’t been fully vetted.”
Members of the Delacroix Corporation also cited concerns about population retention and fee prices.
House Counsel Melinda Brown noted that commercial hunters target males and not egg-producing females, a practice the corporation fears may not be followed by recreational hunters.
“We're going to eventually be killing the egg producers and essentially killing the goose that laid the golden egg for $50 a pop,” Brown said.
On the operation side, Delacroix Corporation land manager Michael Farizo expressed concern for the commercial producers, questioning the fairness of recreational hunters paying the same fee as commercial hunters, who have operational costs.
“It’s almost like the commercial folks in the alligator industry are bearing the burden of a lot of costs,” Farizo said. “Then you're going to give a guy with a piece of string and chicken off the end of his dock the same cost. It doesn't seem fair to me to do that to the commercial guys.”
Riser’s house bill will advance to the House floor for debate, but a bill by Sen. Allain’s, R-Franklin, isn’t expected to be read in the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee until the Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council convenes and discusses the idea of a recreational season. The meeting date of the council has not yet been announced.
