Protesters: Gator Hunt is 'State-Sponsored Animal Killing'

Carrying signs that read “Stop Killing Our Wildlife” and “No Hunting in a Refuge,” a small group of protesters drudged into Palm Beach County’s Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge Friday as the first-ever public alligator hunt there got under way.

While the state’s official alligator season is a tradition that dates back to 1988 for hunters lucky enough to win the permit lottery, Friday marked the first-ever gator hunt at the 143,000-acre preserve, the Miami Herald reported. All told, 11 hunters were given permits to hunt the property with a limit of two gators each set.

Protestors from the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida were met by a large law enforcement presence as the hunt began. Officials from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Palm Beach and Broward county sheriff’s offices and even the Sunrise Police Department were on hand to keep the peace, the paper reported.

Protester Lynda Cozart told the Palm Beach Post there isn’t a good reason for such a hunt.

“It’s not for population control,” she told the paper. “People simply like to kill animals, and that’s just not right.”

See also: Woman Attacked by Gator at Tampa Park

Hunters argue the population needs to be culled.

“They are cannibals and become too large,” Bill Imboden of the Florida Sportsman Club told the Post. “That’s dangerous. This is about science and management, not emotions.”

Wildlife officials say the refuge’s gator population is more than large enough to support a harvest.

Rolf Olson, the refuge’s manager, told the papers the park’s gator population is more than large enough to support a limited harvest and could even be expanded in future years.

The state issued a total of 5,886 permits for the 2014 alligator season, which runs through Nov. 1.

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