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HOUSTON CHRONICLE (Texas) 24 November 05 TPW could ease rules for recreational gator hunting - Agency looking at how to mesh with federal laws (Shannon Tompkins)
Texas has lots of alligators. Lots.
The big reptiles are most abundant in the marshes and swamps along the coast. But they are plenty common in places many would never suspect.
Gators swim in hundreds — maybe thousands — of stock tanks through South Texas' brush county. They are thick in the deeper, sluggish sections of rivers such as the Nueces, Frio and Guadalupe as far as 100 or more miles inland.
Truth is, just about any piece of water east of Interstate 35 is likely to hold one.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials are looking for ways to make it easier for Texans outside the traditional high-density alligator range to take some of those big reptiles. The focus will be on separating "recreational" harvest of gators from the currently combined commercial/recreational alligator harvest regulations.
Until this year, a person wanting to take an alligator had to purchase a special alligator hunter license. And that was just the start of the process.
Then the person had to find a landowner who had gone through the hassle of getting a state biologist to determine the alligator population, reproduction and other factors on that particular tract.
The biologist would use the population data to determine a harvest quota and issue the landowner tags for that number of alligators. A person could take alligators only if he held a tag obtained from the landowner. And that tag had to be immediately attached to any gator taken.
Those tags were, and are, important.
Harvest and trade in alligators falls under federal and international law as well as state statutes. Specifically, alligators are included in the rules set out under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, more commonly knows as CITES.
Although American alligators in Texas have been removed from the federal Endangered Species List, the reptiles remain endangered in some states and are similar in appearance to many crocodilians that are seriously endangered.
So federal law and CITES agreements require a CITES tag be attached to an alligator to combat poaching and illegal trade in the animals.
Regulations governing take and possession of wild alligators are aimed at the commercial use of the animals.
But some people in Texas, particularly in those areas outside the high-density alligator habitat along the coast, want to take an alligator for non-commercial reasons. Maybe they simply want to experience hunting a gator, or they want to get one and have a pair of boots or a belt or other item made from the durable hide.
Or they may want to take one or a handful for commercial use.
Under current rules, it's a chore to jump through all the administrative hoops.
Texas has more than enough alligators to allow for recreational harvest of some of the animals in those far-flung areas of the state.
And to be brutally honest, a lot of "problem" gators — those that take up residence in private ponds, tanks or lakes and pose a real or imagined threat — end up dying of high-velocity lead poisoning.
The Texas Legislature earlier this year took a small step toward loosening alligator hunting regulations when it passed a law doing away with the alligator hunter license.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission quickly adopted a regulation to require only a regular hunting license in its place.
Earlier this month in a briefing before the TPW Commission's regulations committee, TPWD wildlife division staff said the agency is considering drafting proposals concerning recreational take of alligators.
"We're looking at the rest of the state outside that coastal area that has a large commercial alligator hunting presence," said Mike Berger, director of TPWD's wildlife division. "We're trying to come up with a way to allow recreational take of alligators with just a regular hunting license."
The recreational take of alligators would be limited to private lands, Berger said. Allowing recreational harvest of alligators on public waters would create law enforcement and safety problems, he said.
The agency is struggling with how to word a proposal so it covers all federal rules — in particular, how to provide and distribute CITES tags to be placed on any recreationally taken gators.
"If an alligator is going to be sold or taken out of state, it needs a CITES tag," Berger said. "We're trying to develop a process for getting those tags to the landowners who will be the ones who pass them along to the people who take them."
The agency plans to have a draft proposal for changes to the alligator hunting regulations ready to present to the commission at the oversight group's January public meeting. The commission could adopt the liberalized hunting regulations in April, and the rules could take effect Sept. 1, just ahead of the traditional alligator season.
TPW could ease rules for recreational gator hunting

>>"If an alligator is going to be sold or taken out of state, it needs a CITES tag," Berger said.

I don't follow. Why does crossing STATE lines require a CITES tag? Is that a provision of the Lacey Act somehow?

I ask because a question came up regarding a different species being listed in CITES Appendix II--I thought it would limit trade on the species in question until I was reminded that CITES is concerned with INTERNATIONAL, not INTERSTATE trade.
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet

I have a hard time beleiving that all of the baby alligators that find their way to every state in the country through the pet trade have cites tags.