*The Conservation Advisory Board approved a regulation to establish Alabama’s first alligator hunting season August 18-24, 2006 in a defined area of Mobile and Baldwin counties.

The limit was one (1) alligator, six (6) feet or longer for each of 50 hunters chosen through a computer-generated selection process. All selected hunters was required to attend a mandatory training course.

Restoration of the American alligator is a national conservation success story in which Alabama played a lead role. Unregulated alligator harvest throughout the South in the 1920s, 30s and 40s threatened the species to near extinction. In 1938, Alabama took action and became the first state to protect them. Other states followed their lead and, in 1967, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service placed the American alligator on the Endangered Species List. Two decades of protection enabled the species to rebound. By 1987, it was removed from the Endangered Species List but was retained as a federally protected species.

Alabama’s alligator population has grown to the extent that they pose a nuisance in many areas. Implementing a regulated alligator hunt on a small scale is an important step toward controlling populations and better managing this unique reptile.

To learn more about this historical hunt please visit Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. http://www.dcnr.state.al.us/hunting/alligatorhunthome/

*Excerpts from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website.

Delta Airboat Express was chartered as a guide service by individual parties for their hunt. Three of these hunts resulted in a harvest.