CHAPTER NINETEEN 



THE ALLIGATOR 



WHILE not a fur animal, information concerning the 

 Louisiana alligator cannot be out of place in this 

 bulletin, as this reptile, once so common in our 

 marshes, swamps, rivers, bayous and other wet places, has 

 long been an important article of our commerce and has 

 given many thousands of our people of the lowlands an 

 occupation and a livelihood in hunting the giant saurian 

 for its skin. 



It is very necessary, too, to call attention to the very 

 alarming decrease in the numbers of our alligators. From 

 toll taken of this saurian during the past half dozen years, 

 particularly during the drouth summers of 1924 and 1925, 

 it seems at this writing that this giant and characteristic 

 reptile is doomed to disappear from our fauna — and within 

 the next few years. 



During the muskrat and other animal surveys we have 

 been repeatedly told by trappers that the alligator is the 

 enemy of the muskrat and that "every 'gator killed means 

 the salvation of from 10 to 100 muskrats, or even more!" 



Many tales are told as to the number of muskrats found 

 in alligator stomachs; even of one 'gator bull-eyed at the 

 mouth of the Mississippi river that had the remains of two 

 full-grown raccoons, a mink and several muskrats in his 

 stomach. Surveys, made in the field during the past three 

 years, however, do not bear out all the crimes this great, 

 scaly creature is accused of perpetrating on the fur ani- 

 mals. 



According to the records of the Department of Con- 

 servation, a tax was paid on more than 21,885 belly skins 

 purchased by raw pelt dealers and shipped out of the state 

 for 1925, which, if placed end to end, would measure 197,- 

 295 lineal feet, or 30 miles and a trifle over. The year fol- 

 lowing tax returns were made on 36,041 skins and the 

 audit is not complete for the 1927 season. 



