174 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



Some 'Gator Food 



This department has been informed by a manager of a 

 large land company that the alligators in their canals and 

 on their 'rat lands are not only very numerous but very 

 large. Many of those killed in March, 1926. were 10 and 

 11 feet long and one of them had a girth measurement of 40 

 inches. The following records are interesting: An 8-foot 

 'gator had been eating a marsh owl ; a 7-foot had 3 ducks 

 and 4 coots (poules d' eau) ; another, slightly larger, had 9 

 coots; a 10-footer, with the 40-inch girth, had eaten 7 coots; 

 an 11-footer had 2 ducks and 5 coots in its stomach; an- 

 other, slightly larger, had been feeding on owls, coots, 

 ducks, rails, etc. 



In this collection of 44 alligators not a muskrat trace 

 was found in any of the stomachs. The taking of coots 

 cannot be looked on as harmful, as these game birds, the 

 poules d'eau of Louisiana, are increasing faster than ducks, 

 because the hunters will not shoot them, and are monopoliz- 

 ing many of the best duck-feeding grounds in the state and 

 cleaning them of foodstuffs. Owls, as surveys have dem- 

 onstrated, are very harmful to the muskrats, so the taking 

 of these birds cannot be counted against the alligator. Eat- 

 ing ducks, however, is a black mark. 



Vernon Bailey balieves that the alligators must, through 

 their well-known habit of snapping up anything swimming 

 in the water, play havoc with muskrats when they leave 

 the marshes, and the 'gators, he believes, are partially re- 

 sponsible for the Louisiana muskrat leading the terrestial 

 life it does. That this fur-bearer would shun the water if 

 it was inhabited thickly by alligators, stands to reason, and, 

 in this particular, it might be well to call attention to the 

 fact that gar fish would also eat muskrats found swimming. 

 As yet no scales or bones of gar fish have been found in alli- 

 gator stomachs. 



Mating Data 



According to information gathered while making sur- 

 veys of the alligators of our state, it has been ascertained 

 that the alligators mate during the latter part of February 



