HIGH PLAINS JOURNAL (Dodge City, Kansas) 07 August 03 Georgia holding its first gator hunting season
Des Moines (DTN): Marine Staff Sgt. Timothy Lewis is getting ready for an operation unlike any he's ever undertaken, according to the Associated Press.
The hunt promises to take him through swamps and streams in the heat of a Georgia night, beaming flashlights into the blackness for a glimpse of glowing eyes--alligator eyes.
"Hopefully, it'll be exciting...something we've never done before," said Lewis, who began hunting as a child in New Jersey, where his prey was limited to quail, duck and deer.
In an effort to reduce nuisance alligator complaints, Georgia is holding its first gator hunting season in September, following the lead of Louisiana, Texas, Florida and South Carolina.
Because of state and federal conservation efforts since the 1960s, Georgia's alligator population has surged from almost none to an estimated 200,000.
"We're up to our ears in alligators," said Todd Holbrook, chief of game management for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
Hunting the beasts, which can grow to 16 feet and weigh 800 pounds, won't be anything like shooting deer or birds from afar.
Hunters will have to capture the alligators with ropes, snares or harpoons and pull them close to their boats before killing them--either by severing their spinal cords or shooting them.
"This one could be up close and personal," said wildlife biologist Greg Waters, who runs the state's nuisance alligator program. "It could be very exciting. My only concern is that ... people will be careful."
Georgia announced it would hold alligator season in May. By mid-July, about 1,000 people had applied for permits.
Following the July 31 application deadline, the department will pick 180 hunters at random for the Sept. 13 to 28 hunt, which will include 13 southwestern and coastal counties and a wildlife management area near Valdosta.
Each hunter will pay $50 for a license and even those who come along to help will have to have licenses. Hunters cannot take alligators that are less than four feet long.
To shoot the gators, hunters will either use a handgun or a bangstick--a pole tipped with an explosive cartridge often used by scuba divers to take out sharks.
Those who are picked can attend training sessions.
"Alligators are quite capable," Holbrook said. "You've got to deal with them with a lot of respect. It's a large animal and it makes its living preying on large animals."
Georgia wildlife officials receive an average of 450 nuisance alligator complaints a year from people who discover them in swimming pools and carports, on golf courses or under houses. The state has had eight alligator attacks on humans since 1980. None was fatal.
Nuisance alligators are killed or moved by the state's 13 licensed trappers.
DNR also gets countless other complaints about alligators that don't hang around long enough to officially qualify as a nuisance.
People see them crossing a highway, or walking through a yard, especially during the mating season. Some of these have to be relocated by state workers.
"They're in drainage ditches, yards, garages, right in downtown Albany," said Capt. Ashley Darley, DNR's regional law-enforcement supervisor for southwestern Georgia.
Since his arrival two years ago at Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Lewis, of Pennsville, NJ, has found plenty of outdoor opportunities in rural southwestern Georgia, a haven for quail, deer and turkey hunters.
"I mostly hunt deer, quail and chase (wild) hogs for farmers," said the electronics technician.
"Just being in the woods is something for me," he said. "Even if you don't get anything, you get a chance to think about things and be with your buddies--camaraderie. It's just a good time."
Lewis and two hunting buddies--Gunnery Sgt. Seth Tate of Cache, OK, and Staff Sgt. Barry Quick of Rome, GA--wasted no time in firing off applications when the DNR announced alligator season.
"It's going to be challenging," Tate said. "I'm not going to go after the biggest one, obviously, just being an amateur. I think I'll stick to ones just above the legal limit."
Georgia holding its first gator hunting season