LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) – The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is taking applications for the 2018 Arkansas alligator season starting Friday, June 15.
Though Arkansas has had alligator hunting in southeast and southwest Arkansas since 2007, south-central Arkansas has just now become open to the hunt.
According to a press release from AGFC, south-central Arkansas, or Zone 2, was previously closed to alligator sports hunting because they were using Zone 2 as a control area to analyze the impact of hunting on alligator populations in Arkansas.
“We’ve been able to show that Arkansas’s alligator population is stable and can support a limited sports hunt,” Wildlife Biologist for the AGFC Monticello Regional Office Mark Barbee said. “Opening the zone offers more opportunity for hunters to draw a tag and may potentially address some nuisance alligator situations.”
AGFC will give 107 permits this year. Each permit authorizes the harvest of one alligator, which must be at least 4 feet long. Alligator hunting is allowed 30 minutes after sunset until 30 minutes before sunrise during approved hunting season dates: Sept. 21-24 and Sept. 28-Oct. 1. Each permit holder may have up to three people with them on the hunt, but only the permit holder is allowed to snare, harpoon or dispatch the alligator.
Applicants must be Arkansas residents and at least 16 years old by the day the hunt begins. Applicants with 12 or more AGFC violations are ineligible to apply.
The permit applicants must pay a $5 processing fee when they apply. There will no longer be a $35 tag fee for successful permitees.
For more information, or to apply, click here.
