Grooms: Time is now to control alligators
Filed Under Grooms, Top News | 1 Comment
The recent horrific alligator attack on a local man shows without a doubt why South Carolina needs an alligator management program that includes a harvest season for private and public lands.
It has been 20 years since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the alligator off its endangered species list. Alligators are now found throughout the Southeast, from the Carolinas to Texas and north into Arkansas. The S.C. Department of Natural Resources estimates there are at least 100,000 alligators in our state. The DNR reports issuing high numbers of nuisance-removal permits in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties in recent years.
Several years ago the S.C. General Assembly changed the law to allow the issuance of permits to individual landowners who needed to remove alligators for nuisance or emergency reasons.
