Shreveport Times
May 8, 2026, 8:59 a.m. CT
You don’t have to join ‘Swamp People’ to hunt Louisiana alligators
- Louisiana has authorized a new recreational alligator hunting season due to a growing population.
- The season will likely be open to 5,000 hunters chosen by lottery, with a two-gator limit each.
- Louisiana’s alligator population has grown to more than 3 million, creating potential safety hazards.
- Recreational hunters will be limited to hook and line harvesting from land and cannot sell any parts commercially.
Louisiana hunters soon will be able to add alligators to their trophy rooms after Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill to create a recreational season as the reptile population explodes in the state.
Senate Bill 244 by Republican Franklin Sen. Robert Allain authorizes the Louisiana Wildlife Commission to move forward in establishing the final regulations.
“I’m proud to have helped expand recreational hunting opportunities here in our Sportsman’s Paradise,” Allain said May 7 after Landry signed his bill into law. “We’re offering a new way to address nuisance or overabundant alligators while still maintaining our important commercial alligator industry and controlled harvest limits.”
Allain said the season is needed as Louisiana’s alligator population grows and the reptiles threaten people and pets as their habitat expands.
The recreational season will likely be open to 5,000 hunters annually chosen by lottery, each with a two-gator limit.
Allain said the growing population of gators has become a safety hazard, noting that a 12-year-old New Orleans boy was attacked by an alligator in 2025 and died from drowning.
“As the population grows so does their geographical footprint,” he said.
Louisiana already has a commercial hunting season for alligators, which is chronicled in the popular “Swamp People” TV reality series.
“We think the time is right,” Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Tyler Bosworth testified March 11 during the Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing on the bill. “We want to provide a recreational opportunity for the common folk of Louisiana.”
Louisiana’s alligator population has exploded in the past 50 years from fewer than 100,000 to more than 3 million today. Of those, about 2 million are wild with another 1 million farmed.
That’s at least twice the population in Florida, the state with the second most number of alligators.
And their Louisiana numbers have grown throughout the state where they can be commonly spotted from Lake Martin in Breaux Bridge to Caddo and Cross lakes in Shreveport to Caldwell Parish in northeastern Louisiana.
“This is a conservation success story on the highest level,” LDWF general counsel Garrett Cole said during the hearing. “This would create a true recreational opportunity outside our commercial season.”
Garrett said hunters would compete for hunting tags through a lottery will statewide opportunities. Recreational hunters would be limited to hook and line harvesting from land. No gators could be taken by boat as commercial hunters are allowed to do.
The first season could take place beginning as soon as Oct. 1.
Louisiana residents who want to recreationally harvest alligators must have a basic hunting license, an alligator hunting license and will need to secure recreational harvest tags from LDWF. These new recreational harvest tags will be easily distinguishable from commercial tags, Allain said.
The recreational season dates will open later so as not to conflict with commercial activities. The legal harvest method is hook and line and recreational hides, meat or any parts cannot enter commercial markets.
Participation will require permission from the landowner or use of public lands identified by LDWF, similar to deer hunting requirements, and recreational alligator hunters will be required to remain on the property on which they are authorized to hunt.