Alligator

Alligator-hatching season in full swing

2008-08-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

A baby alligator gets a helping hand as he emerges from his egg at Errol Falgout’s farm in Larose. Alligators typically start hatching in August.

Alligator Farm

2008-08-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1488687251/bclid958657626/bctid1751846754

Alligator Wrestling Camp

2008-08-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

Alligator bites arm off

2008-08-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

An 11-foot-long alligator bit off an 11-year-old boy's arm at the shoulder.
The boy, and two girls were playing in a body of water around 3 p.m. at a subdivision near Slidell, about 20 miles northeast of New Orleans, when the alligator swam toward them and pulled the boy under, said Sheriff Jack Strain.
The alligator pulled Devin under water and bit off most of an arm, but the boy poked it in the eye and got free, relatives said.

The two girls with him made it to shore, ran for help and called 911. Three sheriff's deputies on patrol drove as far as they could toward the lake, then ran the final stretch — 1 1/2 miles — to reach the boy, Strain said.

The deputies helped the boy out of the water, and he was taken by 4-wheeler to a staging area where an ambulance picked him up and transported him to Slidell Memorial Hospital.

Later, the youngster was transported by helicopter to Ochsner Foundation Hospital in Jefferson. Strain said the boy was "fighting for his life."

"Our enforcement people reported the alligator had been shot," said Bo Boehringer, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. "The good news is the alligator was in an enclosed body of water and could not escape that area."

WDSU-TV in New Orleans reported the arm had been recovered but the sheriff's office did not immediately confirm that.

Alligator attacks in Louisiana are rare, said Noel Kinler, manager of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' alligator program. He said there was one last year, and two in 2005 and 2004, none serious.

"Typically an alligator is pretty docile," Kinler said. "But we take every chance to warn people that they need to be careful around them, especially large alligators."

Kinler speculated that an alligator as large as the one that attacked Funck might have mistaken the boy for something it would normally feed on.

"I can't say for sure, but certainly a young boy splashing his arms around could have seemed like a small animal to the gator," Kinler said.

Louisiana has 65 qualified hunters who handle about 5,000 calls about nuisance alligators a year, Kinler said. Of those calls, about 3,000 alligators are destroyed, he said.

"If an alligator is over 4 feet long we try to harvest it," Kinler said. "There is no sense in removing it and taking it somewhere else where it could just become a nuisance again."

Importance to Humans

2008-07-09T15:59:00.001-07:00

Importance to Humans

The alligator gar has been commercially fished in southern states along with other gar species, and has also been fished and bow-fished. The meat of the alligator gar has been commercially sold for over a dollar a pound locally. It is not classified as a sport fish in some states such as Texas even though there is a popular bow fishery along the Rio Grande River. It is classified as a sport fish Alabama where the limit is 2 fish per day, which makes it off limits to commercial fishing in Alabama. The alligator gars, along with other gars, are important to their ecosystem in order to maintain the ecological balance.

Danger to Humans

Due to its large size and sharp teeth, the alligator gar is capable of delivering a serious bite wound to fisherman or swimmers. However, there is no documentation of attacks on man by alligator gars. The eggs are poisonous, causing illness if consumed by humans.

Conservation

The alligator gar is rare, endangered, and has even been extirpated from many of the outer areas of its range. Studies in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have shown that the alligator gar is very susceptible to overfishing. It has been classified as rare in Missouri, threatened in Illinois, and endangered in Arkansas, Kentucky, and is soon to be in Tennessee.

Atractosteus spatula

2008-07-09T15:54:00.001-07:00

The alligator gar is a much misunderstood sport-fish in America, it being the second largest freshwater fish here. There are very little true things that are in print about these great fish -
they are a very long lived fish, with no natural predators except man.
They grow very fast in the first 1 to 2 years being able to obtain weights up to 20 lbs the first year, after this spurt of growth they slow down and grow all the rest of their life,
with life spans being upwards of 75 years.
They will feed on anything from birds, to fish with anything in between being taken.
They are at the top of the food chain in their environment, and they are also very fast,
hunting type fish, not a lay in wait type of fish.
They have disappeared from a lot of their former habitats, not due to over-fishing,
but mostly due to habitat changes; as in the Arkansas River, which is no longer a slow natural stream, but a river that has seen the lock and dam system arrive, and the gar are no longer able to tolerate the colder waters. The dam building here in Texas, as in Lake Livingston and Sam Rayburn, has helped the gar to multiply, especially in Lake Livingston where they have the Trinity River to migrate up stream during the spring and sinter floods.
On a normal day here in Texas we will see an average of 20 to 100 gar turn in the surface.
The gar obtain 200+ lbs here quite often with numerous fish being taken above 100 lbs weekly.
The maximum size of this giant is probably around 400 lbs -
Kirk's biggest Alligator Gar weighed 365 lbs and it was 9 ft 6 in long !
IGFA All-tackle World Record: 126.55 kg / 279 lb 0 oz - Rio Grande, Texas, USA

Alligator gar

2008-07-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

The alligator gar, Atractosteus spatula, is a primitive ray-finned fish. Its also referred to as the gator gar. Unlike other gars, the mature alligator gar possesses a dual row of large teeth in the upper jaw. These remarkably alligator-like teeth, along with its snout, give it its name. The dorsal surface of the alligator gar is a brown or olive-color, while the ventral surface tends to be a lighter color. Their scales are diamond-shaped and interlocking (ganoid) and are sometimes used by Native Americans for jewelry.

Also unlike other gars, the alligator gar is capable of breathing air and can survive up to two hours above water.

The alligator gar is the largest species of gar and is the largest exclusively freshwater fish in North America. It can be as long as eight to twelve feet and often weighs at least 100 pounds at maturity. The current world record alligator gar weighed 279 pounds and was caught in the Rio Grande River in 1951. Even larger alligator gars — over 300 pounds — have been caught by trotliners.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2008-06-27T06:40:00.001-07:00

Myths and Facts

2008-05-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

Myth:: Alligators live for hundreds of years.

Fact: Alligators in the wild are believed to live 35 - 50 years. In captivity their life span may be significantly longer, perhaps 60-80 years. Currently, there are no scientific methods of analyzing an alligators age while it is alive.

Myth: Alligators can grow to enormous proportions, over 20 feet in length and weighing a ton or more.

Fact: The longest recorded length for an alligator is 19' 2'. This animal was trapped in the early 1900's in the State of Louisiana. Most wild alligators do not get above 13 feet in length, and may weigh 600 pounds or more.

Myth: Crocodiles and alligators open their jaws differently. The jaws of the crocodile are hinged to open the top jaw, while alligators open their bottom.

Fact: Alligators and crocodiles jaws are hinged the same. Both animals hinge their jaws on the bottom, the top jaw is simply an extension of the skull.

Myth: Alligators are immune to the bite of poisonous snakes.

Fact: Alligators are not immune to snake poison. However, they do have extremely tough skin, and an armored back protected by bony plates called scutes. It is possible that this protection may prevent a snake's fangs from penetrating the skin.

Myth: Only the tail of the alligator is edible.

Fact: Although the tail of the alligator is considered the prime cut, all the meat of the alligator is edible.

Feeding Habits

2008-05-31T20:56:00.001-07:00

Alligators are carnivorous reptiles whose primary feeding time is at night. Small alligators will eat snails, frogs, insects, and small fish. Larger gators will eat fish, turtles, snakes, waterfowl, small mammals, and even smaller alligators. Examinations of alligators stomachs have even found such objects as stones, sticks, cans, fishing lures and other assorted items.

Alligators swallow their food whole. The teeth of an alligator are conical shaped and are made for grabbing and holding, not for cutting. When dealing with larger prey, an alligator may shake its head or spin its body in order to tear off a piece small enough to swallow. They have also been known to hold food in their mouth until it deteriorates to the point they can swallow it.

Alligators have a specialized valve in their throat called a glottis that enables the gator to capture its prey underwater. However, in order to swallow its food and thus keep itself from drowning, an alligator must lift its head out of the water.

Fun facts

2008-05-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

• Crocodilians keep growing all their lives.
• A croc's tongue doesn't move—it's attached to the bottom of its mouth.
• All crocs store fat in their tails, so they can go for quite a while without eating if necessary—as long as two years for some big adults!

Is it an alligator or a crocodile?

2008-05-31T20:50:00.000-07:00

All the species of alligators, caimans, crocodiles, and gharial together are known as “crocodilians.” That is sometimes shortened to “crocs” and still refers to all the species as a group.

But many people want to know what the difference is between an alligator and a crocodile. If you really want to know for sure, you need to know the particular characteristics of each species. But don't worry—there are a few general ways to tell the two apart:

Shape of the jaw— Alligators tend to have wide, U-shaped, rounded snouts, while crocodiles tend to have longer, more pointed, V-shaped snouts.

Teeth— The fourth tooth on the lower jaw sticks up over the upper lip on crocodiles, so you can see it when their mouths are closed. In alligators, this fourth tooth is covered up.

Habitat— Crocodiles also have special glands in their tongues that can get rid of excess salt, so they tend to live in saltwater habitats. Alligators have these glands, too, but they don't work as well as the crocodiles', so alligators prefer to live in freshwater habitats.

With 23 species of crocodilians, though, these general rules don't always apply—there are exceptions!

A 9-foot alligator found

2008-05-31T20:44:00.001-07:00

A 9-foot alligator found in a sugar-cane field here about a week ago may have been chased off by female counterparts that have begun to nest, a local expert on the reptiles said.

Easton DeHart, 74, alligator nuisance control man for the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said he caught the gator in the field near La. 24 after being notified by residents in the area.

"Breeding season is over," DeHart said. "When the females start building their nests, they run the males off. If they’re there when the eggs hatch, they’ll eat them."

Tommy Babin, who lives near the field on Isle of Cuba Road, found the gator while driving through the thickets of sugar cane with his wife on one of many dirt paths cutting through the area.

Alligators measuring 2 to 3 feet are a common sight in the sugarcane field, Babin said. But he has never seen one as large as they found on the property on May 23.

They first noticed the animal by the pattern its tail made an one of several dirt paths cutting through the field, he said. Once they found it, the animal began hissing.

"I was just about to freak out," Babin said.

He first thought of the children and

elderly people who walk through the field, as well as the pet dogs in the yards of homes lining the field.

Babin owns a small pack of Chihuahuas, he said, which are perfect alligator-sized prey.

"What could have happened if he hadn’t been found?" he said. "There’s no food for him unless he’d have gone to a house for a dog."

The gator would have had to walk quite a distance, Babin said, at least a mile and a half from a nearby drainage canal.

DeHart, known by the nickname "Alligator Man," said finding a gator that has strayed far from home is not unusual, at least in his experience.

"They’re weird animals," DeHart said. "They don’t have any certain limits to travel. And they’re fast, too. It doesn’t take them long."

DeHart said his busy season for alligator catching -- spurred by rainy weather and the breeding season -- is coming to an end.

He caught or killed 135 alligators in April, he said. In May, he killed 80 and released about 40.

9-foot alligator found in sugar-cane field

2008-05-31T20:41:00.000-07:00