CENTRAL FLORIDA — State wildlife officials are looking for some alligator trappers after a number of them recently quit. Some trappers say they just can't a make a living hunting gators.
It's about to be peak mating season for gators, which means more nuisance complaints around Central Florida lakes and rivers, but some trappers are saying they can't afford to answer the call.
The state needs nuisance gator trappers. Five of them have quit in the last 12 months, and Johnny Douglas, who works Sumter, Lake and Orange counties, will answer his last emergency call on May 11.
"It got where you couldn't make a living catching alligators," Douglas told WFTV.
Douglas will be one of the first to tell you, you won't get rich trapping gators. He's been in the business since of the age of 14, when he began helping his father.
Douglas says there was a time trappers could make ends meet after costs. He says economics and changes in the state nuisance alligator program have changed that.
Trappers like Douglas get $30 for every nuisance gator they trap. The real income came from selling the gators meat and hide, which once fetched $50 a foot.
"I got hides from '08. I can't sell a hide right now," he said.
Douglas told WFTV there's still a market for the meat, $5 to $8 a pound wholesale, but in recent years the state has decreased the area where trappers can hunt for big gators to reduce their population when trappers aren't on nuisance calls.
"I devoted my whole life to it and I just couldn't stay in it," he said.
The Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program (SNAP) is now looking for multiple trappers to work Lake, Sumter and St. John's counties. The state's own website reads, "Generally, there is not enough 'work' to make nuisance-alligator trapping a full time job." It also says turnover is rare; that's been less the case in recent months.
Douglas is transitioning into his new business, lawn care.
"It's going to get where Florida doesn't have a nuisance gator trapper and that's something we have to have," he said.
Florida Fish and Wildlife is accepting applications for nuisance gator trappers through May 9 (visit their site). The state has 62 trappers under contract state-wide.