Help with an american gator

This is kind of off topic for your original post but I'll go with it.

In the article you referenced it stated that the alligator was listed as an endangered species in 1967 and declared recovered in 1987. Crediting alligator farming with this recovery doesn't jive with this quote taken from the Louisana Fur and Alligator Advisory council. By the way your article was also referencing a Louisana Farm.

Farm
Louisiana began an alligator ranching program in 1986 which allows individuals to collect alligator eggs on private lands and incubate and hatch those eggs under artificial conditions. The farmers then raise these alligators until they reach 3'-5' in length. At this time, the farmer has to return a percentage of the animals back to the wild. The remaining percentage can be sold by the farmer. Louisiana now has an alligator egg collection program consisting of the collection of over 300,000 eggs which are valued at over $1.8 million annually and an alligator farming industry that harvests 140,00-170,000 alligators valued at over $12,000,000 annually.

As you can see according to the LFAAC they didn't start this program until just a year prior to delisting.

http://www.alligatorfur.com/alligator/alligator.htm

What I'm reading from this is that they are REMOVING ("collecting") these eggs from the wild and keeping 86% of the young. This 14% return rate would have to be compared to natural mortality rates up to that 3' to 5' length to really say anything, otherwise, it's still a negative flow.

Back on topic, Ive noticed alot of gators that have a certain taste for foul. so throw a baby chick in there and see what happens. toss it right in the water so it splashes and causes a commotion, hopefully inticing a feeding response. Good luck with ur gator and just to settle any controversy there are plenty around here. I dont see any problems with population size

better not get caught with a gator in louisiana. it is very illegal. unless you are issued tags by the state to hunt them

Unlike a domestic cat or dog, Cb reptiles and amphibians do very well in the wild. Because they never truly domesticate, nor do they depend on us. Only to put food in the tank or cage they reside in. Their hunter instinct, never goes away. When you drop a food item into a cage for a reptile, they instantly go into their instinctive "Hunting Mode", as if they were in the wild and this item had naturally just crossed their path. If it weren't for the rules within specific states in regards to disease transference everyone would be able to simply release the animals they keep, so long as they are domestic species to begin with. All of my life I've been catching, raising, and releasing local species. Turtles, snakes, and whatever else interested me. Starting with either wild caught, or C.b. Snapping turtles, Box Turtles, Wood Turtles, and even Bog Turtles when I lived in the small patch of area in the states they inhabit. I suppose it depends on how you look at something. I look at what I do, as helping populations thrive.. When a baby turtle is born, they are in great danger of being eaten, by anything from a bird, to a fish, to even a BullFrog... If I happen to catch a Hatchling, I generally keep it 'til it's got about a 4" Carapace, and then release it back almost where I found it. At 4", aside from man, not much would bother to harass a typical turtle.

Though I do understand the laws of nature, "Only the strong survive" and all of that, which is fine out in wooded areas where there is no human population to start with. However, In the summer time, many times I drive down a road I see something that got squashed by a car. This doesn't apply in the rules of nature and isn't ever even considered in most surveys. Therefore, If I can repopulate areas 1 for 1, with the ratio for turtles being run over by cars, I feel like I'm just helping keep whatever the current population already is, in balance. So, marking what is probably my 30th year keeping local species and raising them to, or beyond the 4" Carapace, or in a case of the snakes, 3' if I can, I will continue to do this indefinitely.
Each one I release, is the replacement for something killed by man. Being that I don't keep and release them in very high numbers, and generally only a couple of or a few at a time, I can't imagine that I could be off-setting any kind of natural balance in the first place. If I am though, than it's in a positive way, not a negative one.
I live in New England. This past summer I caught 5 baby, and 6 fully grown adult Red Eared Sliders in local ponds... This is a problem, because they can adapt, and are an invasive species. This is something I do not condone to, and never will. But I hate being lectured by a friend I grew up with, whom works for the E.P.A. about how bad it is, when I feed a local Salamander, or frog, once in a while, to my locally caught snake or Turtle.
If you guys want to do the same thing I do with gators, go right ahead.. Just don't drop them in the sewers of New York City, and don't do it in high numbers and you release healthy ones into the wild who've been socialized with others of their kind if possible.... I know I'm going to get some arguments here about this, and it's not my intention. However, a few here or there doesn't seem like a big deal to help even some odds on mother natures behalf..