Gator growing: Local farmers look for economy to pick up

Next time you buy a leather purse, wallet or briefcase, there’s a pretty good chance the material may have come from an alligator near you.

That’s because many alligator farms thrive in swampy areas of the Tri-parishes.

Rockefeller Refuge Biologist Manager Ruth Elsey said the industry blossomed around 1986 when Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries began allowing alligator farmers to collect alligator eggs out of the wild, rather than only breeding them.

“It’s just far more economical to collect the eggs out in the wild,” said Elsey. “You have to maintain the alligators all year long, constantly repairing fences, feeding adults all year. They will nest, but the fertility sometimes isn’t as good as it is in the wild.”

Alligator harvesting is capable of bringing $60 million to the state, and the reptiles can be harvested for their skins, their meat and other parts can be used for novelty items.

“The main thing is the skin. It’s a real high-end fashion item,” said Elsey. “They can be used for any leather product.”

And after the skins have been retrieved, local farmers can sell the meat to restaurants all around the country.

Elsey added other parts of the alligators’ body can be put to use as well to make trinket items.

“The heads can be used for bookends, or a model that somebody just put on a bookshelf,” said Elsey. “You can use the hands for backscratchers, just souvenir type things.”

But like almost every other facet in the world, Elsey said the recent worldwide economic crisis has hurt the alligator farming industry tremendously.

Unfortunately, the industry had two of its best years ever in 2007 and 2008, immediately preceding the crisis.

“We had bumper crops of eggs, and so a lot of skins were produced because a lot of eggs were collected. At that time the farmers almost couldn’t keep up with the demand,” said Elsey. “It was just bad timing that right when the farmers had a lot of stock on hand in the barn, prices started to fall apart a little bit. Prices became lower, and it became harder and harder for farmers to sell the inventory that they had, and there were some stockpiles.”

But Elsey touted alligator farmers are well on their way to getting back on their feet due to a collective strategy they implemented in 2009.

In 2007 and 2008, farmers collected about 530,000 eggs in Louisiana. They decided to reduce that number in 2009 to allow the supply and demand to balance back out.

“In 2009, the farmers only collected about 30,000 – a huge drop-off – so they could let the stockpiles get on the market and get all the backlog sold,” said Elsey.

As the worldwide economy begins to improve, there is little doubt the alligator farming industry will quickly follow suit.

Alligator farmers sell skins to leather manufacturers for use in such items as purses, wallets, shoes and briefcases.