Beth Trammell of Madison, Miss., and her team pose with their catch. The alligator is 13-feet and 5.5 inches and weighs 723.5 pounds. It broke the previous record of 697.5 pounds. Photo: Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks
Editor’s Note: It’s wild alligator harvest season in many of the Gulf States. Gulf Seafood News will publish a four part in-depth look at the industry. Television shows such as “Swamp People” have raised the awareness of the benefits of alligator meat to an ever-widening audience. For the industry this has been both a blessing and a curse – prices are at an all time high, but meat is often in short supply. This look at a growing industry by Newsroom Ink reporters Ed Lallo and Springfield Lewis was originally published on Louisiana Seafood News.
Mark Shirley (l) of LSU AgCenter and Sea Grant, inspects a wild alligator hide with Craig Sagrare of Vermilion Gator Farms. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
Family Trades Cash Crop For a Carnivorous One
by Ed Lallo and Springfield Lewis/Newsroom Ink for Louisiana Seafood News
The farmland around Abbeville, Louisiana, is rich, fertile and wet – ideal for growing rice.
The neighboring farms that border the Sagrera family land here are filled with acre after acre of rice paddies, but not one grain of it is cultivated on their land.
The Sagrera family gave up growing rice more than 25 years ago in favor of a more carnivorous crop – alligators, “harvesting” thousands of them every year. Photo: Wikipedia
That’s because the Sagrera family gave up growing rice more than 25 years ago in favor of a more carnivorous crop – alligators, “harvesting” thousands of them every year.
“My dad was a rice farmer in the mid-1980s,” said Craig Sagrera, who owns Vermilion Gator Farm, with his father Wayne and three brothers – Stephen, Kevin and Raphael.
“In high school, he started trading fur and alligator skins with his dad. He had all the contacts on how to sell alligator skins, so the state approached him about a program it had started to raise and sell gators. It took three years of convincing before my father finally agreed.”
What started with 500 gators on a rice farm now has grown to an international operation, raising more than 75,000 alligators a year.
“We raise farm alligators 12 months out of the year,” Sagrera explained. “We shut down for one month in September during wild-alligator season, which is a lot of labor.”
Collecting Gator Eggs
Mother Nature determines how many alligators are raised on the south central Louisiana farm. Eggs are collected in the wild marshlands.
“My job is to negotiate with the land owners who sell the eggs. Once we have a contract, we fly the marshes with helicopters to find and GPS the gators nests,” said Sagrera. Photo: Mark Shirley/LSU AgCenter and Sea Grant
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries gives marshland owners an allotted number of alligator eggs each year to sell. Growers, such as Sagrera, compete for the eggs and lock in contracts.
“My job is to negotiate with the land owners who sell the eggs. Once we have a contract, we fly the marshes with helicopters to find and GPS the gators nests,” said Sagrera.
Once the location of each nest is mapped, the eggs are collected. After incubating for 65 to 70 days, a gator grower notifies the state exactly how many eggs hatched.
“Last year was a great year, as far as rainfall and salinity,” he said. “We had some record laying in our area, which means more eggs that I can collect to reach my quota. If it is a very salty or dry year, egg production can drop as much as 95 percent.”
Surge Causes Heavy Losses
Once alligator nests are mapped, Sagrera uses an airboat for the dangerous job of egg collection. Photo: Mark Shirley/LSU AgCenter and Sea Grant
Last year a storm surge occurred right before right before egg collection started in mid-June. High water caused the loss of thousands of eggs and destroyed numerous nests, resulting in a loss of more than 10,000 eggs for Sagrera alone.
The state lost about 80,000 to 100,000 of the estimated 350,000 eggs scheduled for picking. “Two years ago, egg production was even lower due to drought conditions and a high salinity in the marsh. Even with the eggs lost, we are still ahead of the previous year.”
The mid-June storm surge of 2012 proves why the alligator-harvesting program is such a success, said Sagrera, president of the Louisiana Alligator Farmers and Ranchers Association.
“Let just say there are 100 eggs out in the wild. If I don’t mess with them, only five percent of them will hatch and live.
That’s a high-mortality rate for baby gators hatched in the marshlands. If Sagrera collects them, however, he estimates 85 out of 100 eggs will hatch and live
“I will make my revenue on them. The landowner will make some money. And then, I put 12 percent of my hatched eggs back into the wild from March to August.”
Compensating Mother Nature
Sagrera and other alligator farmers make a living from animals that normally would die from high water, predators or harsh environmental conditions.
“The alligator farmer provides feed and care for the baby alligator for the first year of life when he reaches four feet,” explained Mark Shirley of Louisiana State University (LSU) Agricultural Center (AgCenter) and Sea Grant.
“The alligator farmer provides feed and care for the baby alligator for the first year of life when he reaches four feet,” explained Shirley. Photo: Mark Shirley/LSU AgCenter and Sea Grant
“The wild population is compensated for whatever eggs the farmers pick up,” Shirley said. “More than enough babies are put back in order to compensate Mother Nature.”
Four feet is an important number for gator farmers. A four-footer is big enough to be released back into the wild or harvested for skin and meat.
“At that size, you empty your farm every year and so you can refill it,” said Sagrera.
Vermilion Gator buys and processes around 8,000 of the 35,000 alligators harvested state-wide during the wild season. Sagrera believes in buying only what he can process at his high quality standards.
Switching from agriculture to alligators may not be for everyone, but it’s certainly proved productive and profitable for the Sagrera family.
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