CHARLOTTE OBSERVER (S Carolina) 28 September 07 S.C. looks to rejoin alligator hunt - Recent attack, animal's resurgence spurs bill to resume limited killings
Charleston (AP): Decades ago, a quintessential Southern sport was alligator hunting -- head into the swamp at night, shine a light, look for the eyes and shoot.
South Carolina banned gator hunting in 1964 as the population here and across the South declined.
But now gators, still considered a threatened species, are back in greater numbers and increasingly meeting humans.
So S.C. lawmakers are considering following other Southern states in allowing public gator hunts. Arkansas began hunts this fall joining Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
There's been renewed attention here since a 59-year-old man lost an arm to an alligator this month in Lake Moultrie.
The S.C. Senate approved a public hunt legislation this year, but it didn't pass the House.
"The alligator problem is getting worse and I'm getting increasing complaints," said state Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, a co-sponsor of the bill.
The new law would permit the public to hunt "in any game zone where alligators occur." The state Department of Natural Resources estimates there are 100,000 gators in the state.
South Carolina resumed limited gator harvests 12 years ago on large private tracts. Since then, about 1,200 gators have been taken.
South Carolina's proposal will resemble laws in other states where hunters use snares and then kill gators either with a knife, handgun or a bang stick -- a wooden stick with a cartridge which explodes when poked against the gator.
That's better than just shooting, said Ron Russell, who killed the gator in Lake Moultrie.
S.C. looks to rejoin alligator hunt