Once upon a time, back in the glory days, a brave hunter willing to tangle with an alligator could earn $60 for every foot of hide he or she brought in. These days, though, alligator skins aren’t such a hot commodity. You’re looking at as little as $10 a foot, according to the Florida Times-Union.
Thanks to a local celebrity, I recently fell down a gator-hunting rabbit hole. For a few days in April, there was a sizable reptile roaming the little waterway that runs a block from my house in New Orleans—a bayou where I regularly float my kayak and let my dog take cool-off swims. This alligator was nine feet long, according to the state department of wildlife, and quickly became a local spectacle. Then, on April 20, a team loaded the beast into a pickup truck. A decal identified the truck as belonging to the “Angry Gator Leather Co.”
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