FLORIDA started its longest public alligator hunt yet last night, as people queued for a licence to kill after the state’s busiest “nuisance alligator” season.
A record number of licences for the hunting season, which runs until November, were issued as people sought revenge for the deaths of three women in May. Every night, from half an hour before sunset until half an hour after sunrise, hit-squads will stalk the swamps armed with harpoons and prods that fire a bullet at point-blank range.
For 8,812 alligators, it will end in handbags at dawn. Processing plants and tanneries have geared up for an influx of skins, which will be descaled, pickled, bleached, dyed and glazed, ready to be turned into anything from shoes, wallets and hat-stands to chequebook holders and hot-pink clutches.
Last year, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission managed to sell only 65 per cent of its permits, largely because of the harvest clashing with an over-active hurricane season and trappers being allowed to buy only one permit at a time.
This year people are allowed two each and they have six weeks longer in which to carry out the hunt, which has meant that all 4,406 permits have been sold in only four hours.
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Experts say that there has also been higher than usual interest because of the publicity surrounding three fatal alligator attacks and a series of incidents from feisty septuagenarians beating off alligators with hosepipes to dog-owners leaping into canals to wrestle them off their pups.
“Revenge isn’t a good word to use, but the attacks did bring more public interest to the hunt,” said Captain Phil Walters, an alligator hunting guide based in Tampa, who offers anything from one-night “training runs” for rookie harvesters for $185 (£100) to two-night trophy- hunting expeditions for $2,500.
“The hunt re-establishes this old relationship we have with other predators that says, ‘Hey, you know what? You’re not going to eat us, we’re going to eat you. We’re still top dog’.”
Since Hurricane Katrina devastated swamplands in Louisiana, the leading state for alligator production, the price of skins has doubled to about $20 a foot as the fashion industry and luxury goods market seek new sources. As older, experienced hunters are joined by newcomers, the commission has been holding free workshops to train people how to safely handle and kill the animals, which can measure more than 12ft (3.5m) and weigh more than 400lb (180kg).
“Taking a large, potentially dangerous animal like an alligator — that thrill is why most of you are here,” Steve Stiegler, a commission biologist, told one group in Okeechobee.
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“You’ll want to treat an alligator with respect, regardless of its condition. They are capable of involuntarily muscle contractions to potentially close their jaws on someone’s hand, even after death.”
FIRST CATCH YOUR ALLIGATOR
Alligator cocktail fritters (makes 12)
Ingredients:
1lb alligator tail meat, finely ground
1 chopped onion
1 green bell pepper
1 cup of flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp mustard
2 beaten eggs
2 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
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Method:
1. Pulverise the meat in a food processor. Add onion and pepper
2. Sift the flour with the baking powder and mustard
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3. Beat the eggs. Combine the flour, butter, Worcestershire sauce with alligator
4. Pour oil into a frying pan. Heat to 380F (190C). Drop batter one table- spoon at a time into the oil. Remove when browned