How NOT to spend your tax refund
June 3rd, 2008 by admin
Permits to hunt alligators in Florida went on sale this morning. The 4,500 available permits will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Each permit allows the holder to kill two alligators.
The 11-week hunt, which begins on August 15, is barbaric. Alligators are snagged with barbed hooks, pierced with arrows, stabbed with harpoons, and shot with a firearm called a “bangstick.” Only then is the animal pulled into a boat where he or she is finally killed by a knife or screwdriver that severs the spinal cord and is inserted into the brain cavity.
The permits cost $271.50 for Florida residents; nonresidents pay over $1,000. The cruel hunt is a financial boon for Florida’s fish and wildlife agency, and hunters may also profit from the killing. The alligator may be the only Florida animal that hunters kill in expectation of a financial reward. Dead alligator’s skin and flesh is often sold to processors who wait at the docks for hunter’s boats to return.