Alligator farms put a bite on trapper’s wild goods

Starting today, thousands of hunters will trek into Florida’s steamy swamp, with snatch hooks and spotlights in hand, searching for a top predator: the American alligator.

Aug. 15 marks the beginning of the statewide, 11-week alligator hunt sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Among the hunters will be Brian Wood, founder of All American Gator, which has a LaBelle alligator processing facility and Hollywood store to offer all things gator, from couches to purses to belts.

Wood, 56, opened his facility in 1988 after going on his first gator hunt in 1987 and realizing how few processors there were in Florida. He started buying alligators from hunters each season, taking the reptiles back to his facility to strip the skins and process the meat. Then, he’d sell the hides to luxury fashion brands that would turn them into purses,

shoes and belts costing thousands of dollars.

In the 1990s, at the height of the market, Wood would buy 1,800 gators from hunters for up to $35 per foot, selling the hides to designers for nearly $57 per foot. But now, the bottom has dropped out of the wild alligator market, he said.

Today, designers are using farmed alligators and crocodiles and no longer need to buy wild skins from middlemen like Wood.

“Luxury brands have moved into acquiring live supplies. Hermès now owns an alligator farm in Louisiana and two crocodile farms in Australia while LVMH has purchased the Johnstone River crocodile farm, north of Queensland,” according to a 2017 story by The Business of Fashion.

This year, Wood expects to purchase about 200 gators, paying just $6 to $7 per foot.

“The gator skins back 40 years ago were worth $35 a foot. Now we can’t sell them for $10 a foot,” Wood said. “This year, because the skin has no value, I can’t pay the same prices I used to pay.”

In the past, Wood had buyers line up before the season opened. Last year, an Argentine shoemaker bought all his skins at the last minute. This year, Wood can’t find anyone who’s interested in the tough hides prized for their beautiful leather finish. While cow hides are readily available and only take eight weeks to tan, alligator leather takes about six months.

“I don’t have a buyer and I don’t know many people who do have buyers. It’s a whole industrywide problem,” he said.

Without a buyer, Wood said he will have to tan all the skins, which takes time and costs about $25 per foot, he said. Once it becomes leather, it’s more valuable because it can be turned into products.

Wood sells wallets, purses and belts that he makes in his Hollywood store, at 1892 Polk St. One of his large purses sells for about $3,600, he said, whereas a Hermes Birkin handbag will set you back at least $50,000. He doesn’t sell many.

“People want the designer name on the product,” he said.

Wood isn’t the only processor planning to buy fewer gators. “I expect this year we will see a decline [in purchases] as well,” said Grayson Padrick, vice president of Central Florida Trophy Hunts, a meat processor in Cocoa.

“We won’t intentionally buy less, but the fact that we will pay less for them will affect our numbers,” Padrick said.

When comparing the wild alligator skins to the farmed skins, the latter are of much higher quality, which is what high-end leather makers want, Padrick said.

Alligator skins are graded by dividing the belly skin, the most valuable part, into four imaginary quadrants, then assessing it for defects such as holes, scars and scratches. According to leather tannery Pan Am Leathers, the grading scale is:

Grade I: No defects on any quadrant

Grade II: Defects on one quadrant

Grade III: Defects on two quadrants Grade IV: Defects on three quadrants “Leather-makers like Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Hermes want those highquality, Grade I skins, but the number of Grade I skins that come out of the wild is like 5 percent,” Padrick said.

Wild alligators also are subject to environmental conditions, like weather and animal interactions, which can mar skins.

“The grading has gotten significantly harder than what it used to be 10 years ago. Plus, the end-user is grading harder as well,” Padrick said.

Wood doesn’t expect the skin value to make a rebound anytime soon. “The price would always go up and down, but this time the price is down and out, and I don’t foresee it to come back again,” he said.

In the 1950s, the American alligator was hunted close to extinction. It was listed as endangered in 1967 but, thanks to the Endangered Species Act, has rebounded. In 1987, after alligator populations recovered, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opened a regulated hunting season.

Approximately 7,500 hunting permits, called CITES tags, have been distributed by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission this year, which allows each hunter to harvest two alligators from Aug. 15 to Nov. 1. The season is incredibly popular but far from cheap — the tags cost $272 for Florida residents and $1,022 for nonresidents.

Tag sales generate nearly $2 million annually, “which supports the research, management and law enforcement activities that contribute to the conservation success of Florida’s alligators,” according to Tammy Sapp, spokeswoman for the conservation commission.

Sapp said that a 1996 assessment indicated that alligator hunting makes a nearly $14 million impact to Florida’s economy.

During the 2017 season, 6,261 alligators were harvested during the statewide hunt, which is just a small fraction of the estimated 1.3 million living throughout Florida, according to Sapp. Once the gators, which live in every county in the Sunshine State, are caught by the hunters, processors like Wood and Padrick purchase them.

This year, Wood and Padrick said they’re only buying alligators for their meat. “Meat sales is what is really keeping the industry afloat,” Wood said.

Wood sells 80,000 of pounds of meat a year to wholesalers for about $8 per pound. His two main customers are Manny’s Enterprises in Sunrise and Sea Breeze Food Service in Jacksonville.

“If the meat market takes a bad turn, then an alligator would become worthless,” said Padrick.

Wood isn’t waiting around for that to happen. Instead, he’s now focusing his time and energy in a new high-demand, highpaying South Florida market: catching iguanas.

He started an iguanacatching businesses, Iguana Catchers, in 2008. He said he used to get about four hits on his website per day. Now, he’s getting 17 to 26.

“I’m sorry to say, but it’s good for business. It’s good timing because I can’t make a living off [alligators] anymore,” Wood said.

“The value of [gator products] went down and I had to pick it up somewhere. So, thank god the iguanas came and invaded.”

“I don’t have a buyer and I don’t know many people who do have buyers.” Brian Wood, merchant

PHOTOS BY YUTAO CHEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Brian Wood, owner and founder of All American Gator Products in Hollywood, poses with some items he sells.

A trend toward goods made from skins taken from alligator farms is hurting sellers of items made from wild alligators, whose skins are more likely to be flawed.