Calling on everyone to buy alligator leather and products

[SCReptiles]

I would like to make everyone aware that contrary to what your first reaction maybe it is important that we buy alligator leather, meat, products such as shoes and handbags, and even those little mounted heads. As herp lovers our gut reaction to things such as this are negative, but they are important to the protection of the species. Let me explain why. Louisiana is the only state alligator recovery program I am familiar with, so it will be the only one I am addressing. I don’t have exact dates and population numbers, so if they are important to you, you can research them thru Insti-gater in New Orleans. (Sorry I didn’t take notes when I was talking with them.) In the 1960’s researchers discovered that there were about 150,000 Alligators left in the US. They had the foresight to begin a program to help the recovery. They noted that only abut half of Alligator eggs hatched and only a few of those hatchlings make it to 4 feet. (The size where they stop being prey and begin being apex predators.) Their solution was simple. They decided to collect the eggs from the nest, hatch them, raise them to 4 feet, then release them. Well, the program was a staggering success. Within 10 years the population went from 150,000 in the US to over 3,000,000 just in LA. The system uses private farms for the program. For profit firms collect the eggs, hatch them, and raise them for about 1 to 2 years. (4 to 7 feet) After that time, they are required to release a certain percentage back into the wild through LA fish and wildlife. The rest are processed for leather, meat, and products. That percentage is where these firms make their money and thus the reason they stay in business. If we, the general consuming public, do not support the farms then the program will not continue! Everyone knows that I have a low opinion of environmentalists. For the most part I think they are well meaning, but they fail see the big picture and often get the opposite results of what they intend. For example, deforestation of the rainforest. Profits from tree farms reached levels to where many firms where raising trees for profit and cutting of the rainforest was almost halted. The environmentalist crowd pushed paper recycling to the point that it killed the profit in tree farming, so the firms pulled out of tree farming and now they are cutting the rainforest again. I would hate to see this same scenario or a facsimile there of take place among the Alligator program. The environmentalist crowd is lobbying against the processed alligator industry and if we allow them the same success we did with the paper, then we’ll be begin to lose alligators again, just as we are again losing the rainforest. So in closing buy Alligator products.