This seems to be a wildly asked question since the show first aired. So how much will an alligator bring in? Anyone who watches Swamp People knows that alligator hunters care about how much money they make and how fast they can tag out. Sure, they hunt for their love of the land, but they do it for their living, too and I am pretty confident in saying that if they weren't getting paid for it, they more than likely wouldn't do it. With the exception of the easy going Guist brothers, the hunters featured on the show are quick to talk about what makes the difference between a profit and a loss during the one-month alligator season in Louisiana. As the show’s narrator often reminds us, many of these men make half their income for the year from the alligators we see them catch on the show, each one of those tags accounts for a paycheck and each one of the alligators is only worth as much as the weight and the size and quality of the skin. We hear about tags and maps and the quality of an alligator’s skin, as well as the all important question of its size. So how much are these guys really making?
Well its a bit complicated. As it turns out, the Alligator business is pretty volatile. The market fluctuates wildly, and the alligator hunters’ fortunes come and go with it, if they’re not careful. The Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council has all the information (and more!) that you would ever want to know about how to lawfully hunt wild alligators in Louisiana and sell their hides and meat for a profit, but they tell a little bit sweeter of a story about the industry. According to their site, alligator hunting has become steadily more profitable over the years. While skins went for $6/foot in the 1960′s and $9/foot in the early 1980′s, they rose to over $40/foot in the late 1980′s.
What the Louisiana Advisory Council fails to mention is that prices have come down since the late ’80′s, WAY DOWN! One Louisiana newspaper, Vermilion Today, reports that in the 2010 season
“A wild gator that is seven feet or longer sells for around $12 to $15 a foot. A 10-foot gator at $13 per foot will be purchased for $130. When the price was $40 per foot, that same gator was purchased for $400.”
So, according to these estimates, when Troy Landry pulls a 12 foot monster alligator out of the swamp, risking his life and straining his body, he might get up to $180 for a perfect hide. If the gator has lived hard and has the scars to show for it, he’ll get less. And, if there’s a little alligator on his line, he has wasted a precious tag on a hide that won’t bring in enough to cover the cost of catching it.
Hunters can harvest as many alligators as they have alligator tags, but the tags are also regulated and if they don't tag out one year they will lose those tags the following year. So when you hear them being so adamant about tagging out before the end of the alligator season. When you catch a gator, no matter what the size, you have to put one of your tags on it. You can’t cut the little ones loose and save your tags for the big boys. That’s why the hunters get a little disgusted when they put small alligators into the boat; each one takes a tag that could’ve gone on a monster (and earned them a lot more money).
Alligator tags don’t cost anything if you own your own hunting grounds. All you have to do is prove ownership of a piece of land deemed sufficient to sustain alligators, get a $25 Alligator Hunting license, and make an application. The number of tags you’re assigned is based on the size of your land and (if applicable) the number of tags you filled the previous year. So a bad alligator season one year also means fewer tags in the next. Which means a dwindling paycheck for any hunter.
While we’re on the subject of the costs of alligator hunting, don’t forget the equipment, the help you have to hire (or raise), and the time you have to take off of work to be out on the swamp for a month every year. When you add it all up, there’s not much of a margin in Alligator hunting.
But, let’s do the math. The alligator season lasts 30 days, but serious hunters stretch that to 37 days by owning land in both the East and the West regions, since the Western region’s 30 days starts a week later than the Eastern region’s. Troy Landry, who is the big daddy tag-rich King of the Swamp got 320 tags in 2010, but most professional hunters have far fewer. Let’s say our hypothetical hunter has a healthy allotment of 200 tags and property in both regions (for a 37 day season). So, that means, he needs to average 5.5 alligators a day. Let’s also assume that he’s a really skilled hunter and that 1 out every 10 alligators he catches is a 11+ foot monster. Hunting is hunting, though, so we’ll say that 2 out of every 10 is a baby 5-6 footer. Everything else (7 out of 10) is 7-10 feet.
Here’s how that would look: 20 monsters, 40 babies, and 140 respectable gators.
Pricing is also tough to estimate, but I’ll go out on a limb and take an educated guess. The average price for a respectable gator in 2010 was $11-$12 per foot, but monster gators went for $15/foot or more and babies went for a touch less, say $9/foot. So, more math . . .
20 monsters @ 11 feet each x $15/foot=$3300
40 babies @ 6 feet each x $9/foot=$2160
140 respectable gators @ 8 feet each x $12/foot=$13440
That’s a grand total of $18,900. Which isn't too shabby for a month on a boat in the Swamp Lands of Louisiana.
This is the profit off the hides, alone. Besides frying up into a nice dinner, the meat has some value that could also be added to the alligator hunters’ profits. And, of course, the more big gators you get, the more this total goes up. On the other hand, you have to pay for all your equipment and all your help out of this total. I’m guessing you have to pay normal income taxes, too.
The swampers shown are incredibly tough men (and a woman or two) throwing themselves at an incomprehensibly hostile world and wrestling with it until it gives them a living. But the more you watch, the more the similarities evaporate. Alligator hunters,have to either have some other gig or have to live very simply in order to stay in the hunt. RJ Molinere fishes for shrimp and hunts for every sort of game that will turn a profit that lives on his family’s 500 acres. The Landrys own a gas station and buy crawfish from local fisherman. The Guists? Well, they go the “live simply” route and seem to really enjoy their way of life.
I am pretty sure however they are getting a nice cut from whatever History Channel is paying for their appearance on the show.
Wow, you've done your homework on this. Yes, the market is down lately from previous years. I know a guy who hunts the western section of the state. He said not many years ago he was getting $75 per foot! He's already tagged out this year. He has a smallish piece of property, relatively speaking, and only has 18 tags. On the upside, he doesn't have a whole lot of expenses. He says he usually tags out in the first day or two, so fuel, while certainly not cheap, isn't such a huge, ongoing expense. He pays a helper a reasonable amount, Bait isn't all that expensive, and he often reuses his lines, hooks, etc from previous years, as long as it's in good shape. So even though the market is down, he's still making a bit of a profit. He has a full time job, so gator hunting to him is just a source of extra money. An advantage of having just a few tags is that he has plenty of time to fill them. He can pick a weekend off and get it done, or a little at a time. While hunters with the big spreads and 300 tags certainly make more money, it's a much bigger commitment. They're pretty much obligated to get at it every day of the season, or close to it. About turning in tags, he told me he's never had to because there's WAY more than enough gators on his property. However, he says that the way it works, let's say, if someone has 300 tags and has to turn in a few, like maybe 4 or 5, then it's no problem and they'll still get 300 the following year. Now, if they turn in 30 or so unfilled tags, or a few each season for several years in a row indicating a decreasing harvest, then that would mean less tags issued. I figure most Louisiana gator hunters probably tag out, or come close. I say that because our swamps and marshes, at least in south Louisiana, are absolutely FULL of alligators. Good hunting guys!
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