Few events in Florida are as exclusive as the Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission’s annual alligator tag lottery, a process that can fill up nearly as fast as it’s announced. It’s a long, arduous process, but that doesn’t deter local hunters from throwing their names in the hat to pursue the state’s most dangerous game.
Undoubtedly, many Plant City residents applied for (and, perhaps won) their own tags for 2015. Alligator season began Saturday, Aug. 15, and anyone with tags now has until 10 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, to trap some alligators and meet their quota. Before heading out, however, there are some things any hunter should know — especially the rookies.
PLAY BY THE RULES
According to the FWC, it’s illegal to go looking for alligators during the day. Licensed trappers are allowed to search between the hours of 5 p.m. and 10 a.m., seven days a week.
Trappers may also have noticed that they were assigned a specific “hunting period” for the county-wide harvest. Based on information provided in their applications, the FWC divided early trapping season into four periods: Aug. 15 to 22; Aug. 22 to 29; Aug. 29 to Sept. 5; and Sept. 5 to 12.
The FWC also says that everyone with a license and tags will be able to trap alligators from 5 p.m. Sept. 12 through 10 a.m. Nov. 1 without any period-based restrictions.
To trap alligators, hunters are allowed to use bait and lures within certain restrictions. The FWC’s website explains the restrictions:
“Alligators may be taken only by the use of artificial lures or baited, wooden pegs less than 2 inches in length attached to a hand-held restraining line and hand-held snares, harpoons, gigs, snatch hooks, and manually operated spears, spearguns, crossbows and bows with projectiles attached to a restraining line. The use of baited hooks, gig-equipped bang sticks or firearms for taking alligators is prohibited except that bang sticks are permitted for taking alligators attached to a restraining line.”
There will be no re-enactments of the “choot ‘em” scenes from the television show “Swamp People.”
Obviously, alligators can be found nearly anywhere in Florida, but hunters can only legally go after them in certain areas and can only hunt in private areas when the landowner has granted permission to do so.
STAYING ALIVE
Unlike the University of Florida’s football team, real alligators are not creatures to trifle with.
According to the FWC, they can be found in all 67 counties of the state and will not hesitate to attack anything that isn’t a human. While alligators most often attack other animals, reports show that Florida has averaged five unprovoked bites every year since 1948 — a figure that, as of data released in 2012, translated to 300 total bites and 22 fatalities.
Alligators less than four feet in length pose little danger to humans, unless they’re picked up or otherwise handled, but anything bigger should be approached with caution. And those things can get big: they often range from 10 to 15 feet in length, as many social media users saw in March when a picture of a 13-footer found on an Englewood golf course went viral.
On that note: don’t expect to be able to stroll through Walden Lake or any other course in the state and hunt for a “golf dragon” with no problems.
If bitten by an alligator, drop everything and seek medical help immediately. Besides the fact that some alligators have enough jaw strength to crush and sever limbs as if they were carrots, there’s also an extremely high risk of infection. Alligator bites — actually, reptile bites in general — are considered dangerous because their mouths are breeding grounds for the bacteria of past kills and whatever was inside those animals at the time of their deaths. A bite is survivable, but one can expect to be on some serious antibiotics afterward.
There’s nothing quite like hunting alligators in Florida and, as dangerous as it can be, it’s rewarding when the hunters live to tell about it.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
THE DEATH ROLL
Alligators perform a spinning maneuver to subdue and dismember prey. The spinning maneuver, which is referred to as the “death roll,” involves rapid rotation about the longitudinal axis of the body.
SOURCE: Department of Biology and Department of Physics, West Chester University
MAYBE NEXT YEAR?
Curious about the tag lottery and license applications? Need to know more about where to (legally) go looking for gators? For more information check the FWC website’s Alligator Harvest program section myfwc.com/license/recreational/hunting/alligator/ or call (850) 488-4676.