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Thread: Guide says Lowcountry for gators

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
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    Wateree, South Carolina
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    Default Guide says Lowcountry for gators

    HILTON HEAD, SC

    Alligator hunting season in South Carolina may not begin until September, but if you want to get the opportunity to hunt them you need to put your application in for the lottery by June 15, 2017.

    “We have some people who enter the lottery every year and have hunted many times, but for most it’s the chance to cross one thing off of their bucket list,” Patty Castine, the S.C. Department of Natural Resources lottery coordinator, said.

    Hunting alligators during the specified season has been legal since 2008, but there was an uptick in interest in the sport after the show, ‘Swamp People’ became popular on the History Channel.

    “That show has definitely encouraged people to want to hunt gators,” Jim Boone, professional hunting guide and owner of Red Bluff Lodge, said, “but what they don’t realize is that most of what they do on that show is actually illegal in the state of South Carolina.”

    One example of this is baiting the alligators, according to Boone.

    If you are going to hunt alligators though, the Lowcountry is a great place to do it, Boone said.

    “Alligators don’t like people, they like to be left alone,” said Boone, and the rivers and marshes in the Lowcountry, particularly the Ace Basin, are a great place for them to thrive because our ecosystem is so rich.

    “They like living in our area for most of the same reasons why we are finding the large sharks in our waters,” Boone said, “They are apex predators and if the ecosystem is thriving then they will.”

    Boone has been helping hunters to harvest alligators in rivers like the Ashepoo, Combahee, Edisto, New and Savannah since it was legalized in 2008.

    “Alligators don’t typically grow longer than 14 feet, and we’ve caught our fair share of 10 to 13 foot gators here,” Boone said.

    If you don’t want to take your chances trying to harvest an alligator in the wild, you can pay more money to put your name in the lottery to hunt alligators at both Bear Island Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and Santee Coastal WMA.

    “You still have to hunt the alligator, but you pretty much know you are going to get one if you hunt on a WMA. You also don’t have to compete against other hunters for the harvest,” Patty Castine said.

    According to a press release from S.C. DNR, there are more than 100, 000 American alligators between the Midlands and the coast, so the population will not be threatened by the harvesting of a small number of them.

    1000 names are selected for alligator hunting licenses every year, and in 2016 less than 400 alligators were harvested.

    Each hunter is only allowed one gator, and most either decline to buy the license or don’t end up finding and killing an alligator.

    For more information on how to enter your name into the raffle or to find out costs, go to www.SCDNR.com.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Location
    Hampton Co., SC
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    10,122

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    \"I never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A small bird will drop dead frozen from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.\" <br />D.H. LAWRENCE

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