Alligators may be plentiful again, but still deserve protection
November 11th, 2006 by admin
Today, the Lakeland Ledger published the following letter from ARFF’s president Nanci Alexander about proposed changes to Florida’s alligator “management” program:
“The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has announced results of an online survey about alligators in our state in which more than 600 people participated.
Despite the fact that an equal number of respondents said that Florida’s alligator population is “just right” or low as those who said alligator numbers were too high, the FWC chose to emphasize the latter and will consider reclassifying the alligator as a game animal.
It is true that alligators are now abundant in Florida. But because we can kill thousands of alligators without driving the species back to the brink of extinction, this does not mean that we should. Is hunting the ultimate goal of efforts to protect imperiled species in Florida? Is this what the threatened Florida black bear has to look forward to?
The FWC’s support of an expanded alligator hunt is not surprising. The commission is desperate to reverse the steady decline in the number of Floridians who participate in hunting (the number of licensed hunters in Florida has declined 40 percent since 1980).
The future of hunting in Florida - for hunters - is gloomy. For squirrels, deer, turkeys, doves and other “game” animals, the future is much brighter.”