Bill seeks to reduce guardrails on alligator ownership, breeding

OKLAHOMA CITY – Alligators could be raised as pets and for food under an Oklahoma bill pending before lawmakers.

Senate Bill 2087, by Sen. Jonathan Wingard, R-Ada, would allow the raising of alligators hatched from eggs in captivity without a permit.

Currently, a permit and written permission from the director of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation are required to own an alligator, said Wade Farrar, assistant chief of law enforcement for the agency Most permits issued are for alligators in zoos, he said.

He did not have numbers of how many licenses had been issued.

The state Department of Wildlife said alligators mate around June each year, and lay 20 to 30 eggs. The Oklahoma City Zoo reports that American alligators live an average of 35 to 50 years and are naturally found in Southeastern Oklahoma.

“What I’m looking at and working on is there has been some interest expressed in the food production side of this, allowing meat processing plants to raise alligators to be able to have for slaughter,” Wingard said.

He said the measure was a constituent request, and he is trying to determine if there is a market in Oklahoma for alligator meat. Alligator skin could also be sold, he said.

He said the bill he wrote is incomplete, but he needed to get something filed as a placeholder before the bill filing deadline.

The way the measure is currently written, it would allow for individuals to raise alligators as pets as long as the animal wasn’t taken from the wild, he said.

He said the measure has generated some controversy “At this time, it is an incomplete bill with incomplete language, so if it does move forward, there will be more put in as guardrails and protections and it would be narrowed up before it ever would even be considered,” Wingard said.

The measure directs the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation to create rules to implement it.

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