Born on the bayou (or not)

The fellow above was on a canal near Irish Bayou, but we also spent some time with puppy gators at an alligator ranch:

The ranch model is basically as follows: eggs are collected, under permit, from the wild, and the gators raised in captivity, where the survival rate of puppies is much higher than in the wild. A certain percentage are released back into the wild, an uncomplicated process as compared to, say, wild-hacking falcons—the gators can basically be chucked into the water from a boat and left to fend for themselves, though the releases are always done where the eggs were collected in order to prevent artificial mixing of gene pools. Gators not released are harvested for their meat and leather.

This program, instituted in 1978, has been a major component in the recovery of the alligator population in Louisiana, from a low of approximately 100,000 wild gators in the late 1950s to over 2 million today (with another million or so in captivity). More details can be found on the LDWF website.