POLK COUNTY, Fla. — Florida is known worldwide for its alligators, but only Florida's insiders know about the millions made from their meat, their hides and even their eggs.
It’s a big business that some believe creates big trouble.
“I feel like I am living in an alligator farm that shouldn't exist in a public lake,” said Michelle Smith, who owns a lakefront home on Lake Kissimmee in Polk County.
Smith contacted the I-Team, worried about what she was seeing near her home.
The I-Team is pulling back the curtain on Florida’s gator trade—the farms, the hunts, the designer handbags—a system where even the state takes part in the cut.
Once an endangered species, Florida's alligators now provide a thriving multi-million-dollar industry.
Cashing in on Gators
“This to me is a slice of old Florida,” Patty Register said, referring to her multi-generation family business, Gatorama, located in Glades County.
Her working alligator farm accepts nuisance alligators captured statewide and offers close-up encounters with alligators, crocodiles and other wildlife.
“I believe we're one of only seven roadside tourist attractions that were in business operating before Disney came in 1971,” Patty said.
The tourism and alligator education programs at Gatorama represent only a small part of the equation.
Alligator farmers are cashing in directly, selling alligator hides to some of the biggest brands in haute couture.
“You've got Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hermes,” said Allen Register, Patty’s husband and Gatorama co-owner.
But Michelle Smith believes those for-profit endeavors come at a price on Lake Kissimmee.
Three attacks in two months at the same state park
On March 3, a Texas woman was kayaking in Lake Kissimmee State Park when an alligator struck her paddle, pulling her out of the kayak.
The alligator grabbed onto her arm.
“It’s a tearing wound. A puncture wound. Looks like the kind that would get infected pretty quickly. She’s going into shock,” a witness told a 911 operator. “She’s in real pain. She's in a lot of pain.”
A group of other kayakers, who were on a channel between Lake Kissimmee and Tiger Creek, watched in horror.
“We have 20 other people who are in the group, and we’re trying to get them out of the water,” the caller said.
According to a Florida Wildlife Commission report, a second kayaker swam to the alligator as it attacked the woman, stuck his fingers “deep into the gator's eyes” and slipped out of his life jacket just as the gator grabbed it.
Trappers located and killed an 8-foot alligator near the site of the attack the next day, after seeing “30 to 40” smaller alligators in the area, the report said.
On May 6, there was another alligator attack at the same park.
That one turned out to be fatal.
“We were attacked by a gator. He tipped my canoe over, and he’s got my wife,” David Diekema told a 911 operator.
He and his wife, Cynthia Diekema, were avid canoeists from Michigan.
Cynthia’s Instagram page showed multiple pictures of alligators she took during annual visits to Florida.
One photo showed an alligator warning sign with the caption, “hoping for the best.”
Instead, the Diekemas experienced the worst.
“Their canoe passed over a large alligator. The alligator thrashed and tipped the canoe over, and both individuals ended up in the water,” FWC Maj. Adam Waskowski said at a press conference the next day.
“She's dead. I watched her die,” David Diekema told the operator.
A report says the alligator “performed a death roll and swam away with Cynthia.”
“It’s not safe”
“While alligator attacks resulting in fatalities are extremely rare, this tragedy serves as a somber reminder of the powerful wildlife that share our natural spaces,” FWC Executive Director Roger Young said at the May press conference.
“It's not just bad luck. It's directly due to the overpopulation of gators in Lake Kissimmee,” Smith said.
Smith snapped multiple photos documenting huge alligators near her house.
FWC estimates there are more than 16,000 alligators in Lake Kissimmee, making it Florida’s second most alligator-infested lake behind Lake Okeechobee.
We spotted a large alligator swimming near Smith’s dock in the middle of the day.
Smith said she won’t go outside at night.
“I don't do it because it's not safe,” she said.
Smith believes FWC is allowing the population to explode.
Naturally occurring floating islands called “tussocks” managed by FWC are creating more habitat for gators to nest, including a tussock that crashed into Michelle’s dock after last year’s hurricanes.
Drone video shows floating islands on the lake’s surface.
“They're refusing to remove the floating islands, which means there's going to be more alligator nests and eggs on the floating islands,” Smith said.
Smith called us after she spotted a crew using a helicopter and an airboat in July to collect eggs from alligator nests.
“There’s a lot of gators”
At Camp Mack, a lodge, marina, and RV resort just down the road from Kissimmee State Park, alligators are part of daily life.
“There's a lot of gators. And there's a lot of big ones too,” resident Paul Key said.
Key participates in a lottery program to hunt gators each year. Applicants enter a drawing to be awarded permits, or “tags,” to kill up to two gators a year from specified bodies of water.
Andy Raub helped bring in this massive gator during a hunt decades ago.
“It's a 13’6” gator. Caught it probably 22, 21 years ago,” Raub said, pointing to a stuffed alligator in the community’s general store.
State biologists determine how many gators can be taken from each location based on alligator populations.
The fee to participate is $272 for Florida residents or $1,022 if you live in another state.
Airboat owners, their friends and family members will often apply for multiple tags, then sell guided trophy hunts for thousands of dollars a person.
That’s allowed under state law, as long as a tag holder participates in the hunt.
Raub believes the system should change because he thinks the current system doesn’t do enough to control the alligator population.
“You need to get more tags per person, and you know that you're allowed two gators per season and that's it,” Raub said.
Smaller allotment of hunting tags for Lake Kissimmee in 2025
Because most hunters want big gators, 80 percent of alligators harvested in Florida through the annual hunt were male.
But some believe the population would be controlled better if more female gators were removed.
“They are not being controlled, and they have only issued 100 gator tags for 2025,” Smith said.
She was referring to the 100 tags issued for Lake Kissimmee (each tag allows the removal of up to two alligators).
That’s down from 155 tags issued in 2022 and 264 in 2020.
FWC said overall tag allotments elsewhere have increased.
“We did increase just this year the allotment for statewide alligator hunt by 1000 tags, and along with our statewide nuisance alligator program, we've taken up to 15,000 alligators out of the wild this past year,” FWC Executive Director Roger Young said at a press conference the day after Cynthia Diekema’s death.
That number represents about 1.1 percent of the state’s estimated 1.3 million alligators.
Egg harvesting from public land helps stock alligator farms
Allen Register is one of 30 Florida alligator farmers selected by the state to collect eggs from public land.
Register and his wife, Patty, own Gatorama, which hosts a “Hatching Festival” each August.
“Here’s the places we’re allowed to go,” Register said, pointing to a map of Lake Kissimmee.
His crew marked 179 alligator nests on the lake.
State biologists determine what percentage of eggs he’s allowed to take from each.
Register pays tens of thousands of dollars in expenses before he earns a dime for helicopter rental, salaries, food, gas and lodging for the month-long season.
A FWC biologist is required to accompany his crew.
“We spot the nest with the helicopter. We radio down, give them a direct route. They collect the eggs and they go out the same way,” Register said.
He said his team can gather eggs in minutes, even when they encounter gators, which sometimes happens when a female alligator is protecting her nest.
“Sometimes she'll get aggressive, you know, but and you know there's no alligator abuse or anything like that going on. We do have a stick, a gator stick that we use to protect ourselves,” Register said.
Eggs are gathered, checked to make sure they’re viable, marked, and put into man-made nests.
698,809 alligator eggs have been collected through the state program since 2010.
The farmers pay the state $5 for each egg collected from public land.
Proceeds fund alligator conservation, and $1 from the total amount goes to alligator product marketing through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
At Gatorama, eggs are brought to an incubator, where they start hatching in mid-August.
“I’m listening for chirping,” said Register, as he walked by dozens of trays of eggs.
This season, he will hatch about 4,825 alligators from the eggs.
Alligators hatched in controlled environments are much more likely to survive than those that hatch in the wild.
Alligators hatched at Gatorama could remain at the business and help educate thousands of visitors each year.
“All the animals that you see on the walkway here are strictly for exhibit. None of them will ever be harvested for their meat or hides,” Register said, pointing to different displays of alligators of varying sizes.
His large pond contains about 70 giant alligators.
Some can reach lengths of nearly 14 feet and weigh hundreds of pounds.
Among the gators are nuisance gators trapped throughout Florida and alligators that are more than 70 years old.
Most alligators hatched in the Registers' incubator will be sold to other alligator farms, where they will be raised and later processed for their meat.
Alligator meat and hides bring in millions
Alligator meat is sold in markets and restaurants nationwide and is praised for having high protein, low fat and no cholesterol.
Last year, farmers sold 155,000 pounds of gator meat for nearly $2 million.
But the real value of alligators is in their hides.
They are used to make high-end shoes, belts and purses.
Manufacturers prefer farm-raised alligators because they are free of nicks, scars and blemishes found on gators raised in the wild.
“It’s probably a 22, 24-centimeter skin, because we measure across the belt,” Register said, showing us a gator hide for sale in the Gatorama gift shop.
It retails for $385.
But that pales in comparison to the prices once alligator hides are used to create high-end fashion items.
“You've got Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hermes,” Register said, when asked who buys most of the farm-raised alligator hides.
Alligator purses produced by those fashion giants can sell for up to $50,000 each.
Another buyer, Prada, sued a different Florida alligator farm, alleging the business failed to produce enough hides.
The lawsuit said Prada fronted the farm $1.2 million for 12,000 live hatchlings, or $100 each.
The farm only delivered 4,500.
Last year, Florida farmers produced 26,000 alligator hides, valued at almost $5 million.
“If they were committed to public safety, they would not be using our lakes, our public lakes to harvest alligator eggs, utilizing them as alligator farms to benefit private corporations,” Smith said.
Smith admitted that if those eggs all hatched, there might be more alligators on Lake Kissimmee.
“But the best way to control the alligator population is to allow people to hunt the gators,” Smith said.
“They chose to live there and they knew that there were alligators there,” Allen Register said.
Tragedies scare away kayakers and canoeists
Back at Lake Kissimmee State Park, a new large sign installed by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office warns visitors.
Seven alligators, ranging in size from almost 7-to-12 feet, were removed by nuisance trappers in the three days after Cynthia Diekema’s death.
“For the last few months, it's been real, real slow,” said Sue Millar, who manages the park’s on-site store.
She said in the past, several people rented kayaks and canoes each weekend.
“I haven't had one in probably two or three months. Just the people are wary. They see the signs, they don't want to get in the water,” Millar said.
Even though data shows alligator attacks in Florida are very rare, Smith said she believes she’s no longer safe.
“I will say they don't get bitten because they're lucky and they aren't coming where I live, you know. That clearly wasn't true for the lady who lost her life on Lake Kissimmee,” Smith said.
FWC declined our interview request but provided written answers to our questions.
Here are the questions and FWC’s responses:
1. Why did FWC reduce the number of tags for Lake Kissimmee in 2025? Multiple local residents told us they have seen an increase in the number of large alligators in Lake Kissimmee.
FWC staff conduct yearly surveys on alligator management units across the state. These surveys are conducted to continue population monitoring across Florida, which began in 1974. Using standardized routes and procedures, this allows the FWC to follow and monitor trends of alligator populations over time. This data is used to formulate quotas each year for alligator management units.
2. Data on your website indicates more than 80 percent of the alligators’ hunters killed last year as part of the lottery program were male. Since females are not sought as trophies and the price for a tag is the same for any gator, has FWC looked at ways to encourage hunters to take female gators (which produce offspring)?
Permits for the Statewide Alligator Harvest Program allow permit holders to take up to two non-hatchling alligators. Since the delisting of alligators in 1988, the FWC has implemented various approaches to the management and harvest of alligator populations. The FWC’s currently established protocols incorporate the adaptability and responsiveness required to address and manage Florida’s alligator population.
During the 2024 Statewide Harvest Program, hunters harvested alligators between 2.8ft and 13.7ft, with the average size being 8.5ft, within the normal size range of both males and females. While it is true that over 80% of the alligators where sex was identified were males, a large portion of harvests did not identify the sex of the animal. As alligators do not have outward characteristics depicting their sex, the only way to accurately determine the sex of an alligator is to capture the animal and probe their reproductive organs. Requiring members of the general public to perform this activity prior to harvesting an alligator would put them at unnecessary risk.
3. How important is the program in which FWC allows harvesting of alligator eggs on public lands to control the alligator population? How does FWC choose how many eggs can be harvested from nests?
The public waters alligator egg harvest program helps to manage alligator populations while also supporting Florida’s alligator farming industry. Because the number of eggs per nest may vary, collection quotas are set by nests rather than by individual eggs. Nest collection quota establishments are calculated annually for each water body based on population monitoring data, prior collection success rates, and the abundance of smaller (1-4ft) alligators.
4. Michelle Smith tells us a floating island crashed into her dock after Hurricane Milton. She says FWC is failing to remove many of these islands from lakes and rivers, causing issues with navigation and problems with alligators and snakes that inhabit these islands. What does FWC do to manage floating islands on Lake Kissimmee? Are there enough contractors to do the job? Is that FWC's responsibility to remove the island from her dock?
Floating islands, or tussocks, are naturally occurring features found on many of Florida's waterbodies, including the south end of Lake Kissimmee. These unique habitats support many native plants and wildlife, but due to their mobility, sometimes impede access or navigation on lakes and rivers. In accordance with F.A.C. 68F-54, the FWC's Invasive Plant Management Section manages floating tussocks on a public water body when they block a public boat ramp, impact a water control structure, or block navigation for the boating public. FWC staff evaluated tussocks in this area and determined that removal would have minimal benefits to fish and wildlife. Tussock management along a private shoreline is the responsibility of the property owner. The FWC offers a free permit available online [app.myfwc.com]for individual property owners to manage their shoreline.
5. Why is alligator management so important?
Alligators are a conservation success story. Alligator populations reached an all-time low in the 1960s and were included on the original Federal Endangered Species List in 1967 after being over-harvested for their hides. Ten years later, in 1977, alligators were downgraded to threatened in Florida, and in 1987, the species was considered recovered throughout its U.S. range. The Statewide Alligator Harvest Program began the following year in 1988, and alligators now have a stable population estimated at around 1.3 million alligators throughout the state of every size. Effective management is key in maintaining a stable population, which also provides great hunting and viewing opportunities for residents and non-residents alike.
With Florida’s population continuing to grow, there are increased chances of human-wildlife interactions. Serious injuries caused by alligators are rare in Florida. The FWC places the highest priority on public safety and administers a Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program (SNAP) [myfwc.com]. SNAP uses contracted nuisance alligator trappers throughout the state to remove alligators believed to pose a threat to people, pets, or property. People with concerns about an alligator should call FWC’s toll-free Nuisance Alligator Hotline at 866-FWC-GATOR(866-392-4286), and we will dispatch a contracted nuisance alligator trapper to resolve the situation.
The FWC works to keep Floridians and visitors informed and recommends the following precautionary measures near alligators, including in or near the water, to reduce the chances of conflicts with alligators:
- Keep a safe distance if you see an alligator. If someone is concerned about an alligator, they should call FWC’s toll-free Nuisance Alligator Hotline at 866-FWC-GATOR(866-392-4286), and we will dispatch a contracted nuisance alligator trapper to resolve the situation.
- Keep pets on a leash and away from the water’s edge. Pets often resemble alligators’ natural prey.
- Swim only in designated swimming areas during daylight hours and without your pet. Alligators are most active between dusk and dawn.
- Never feed an alligator. It’s illegal and dangerous. When fed, alligators can lose their natural wariness and instead learn to associate people with the availability of food. This can lead to an alligator becoming a nuisance and needing to be removed from the wild.
6. How does FWC use money that comes from alligator egg harvests?
Funds collected from egg collections (less $1 from each public waters egg retained, which is statutorily obligated to go to Florida Alligator Marketing and Education) plus those collected from other alligator licenses and permits support the FWC’s mission, including alligator management and research.
7. Is FWC considering changing the program in any way?
Though FWC does not currently have any draft rules being presented to the Commission, we remain committed to evaluating potential ways to improve conservation and management related to Florida’s American alligator.
FWC has advice for anyone who encounters an alligator:
• If you encounter an alligator that is believed to pose a threat to people, pets or property, call the FWC’s Nuisance Alligator Hotline, toll‐free at 1‐866‐FWC‐GATOR (392‐4286). The FWC’s Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program (SNAP) uses contracted nuisance alligator trappers throughout the state to remove alligators 4 feet in length or greater that are believed to pose a threat.
• Be aware of the possible presence of alligators when in or near fresh or brackish water. Negative alligator encounters may occur when people do not pay close attention to their surroundings when working or recreating near water.
• Closely supervise children when they are playing in or around water.
• Never swim outside of posted swimming areas.
• Swim only during daylight hours. Alligators are most active between dusk and dawn
• Do not allow pets to swim, exercise or drink in or near waters that may contain alligators or in designated swimming areas with humans. Dogs are more susceptible to being bitten than humans because dogs resemble the natural prey of alligators. The sound of dogs barking and playing may draw an alligator to the area.
• Do not allow pets to swim, exercise or drink in or near waters that may contain alligators or in designated swimming areas with humans. Dogs are more susceptible to being bitten than humans because dogs resemble the natural prey of alligators. The sound of dogs barking and playing may draw an alligator to the area.
• Never feed or entice alligators – it is dangerous and illegal. When fed, alligators overcome their natural wariness and associate people with food.
• Inform others that feeding alligators is illegal and creates problems for others who want to recreate in or near the water.
• Dispose of fish scraps in garbage cans at boat ramps and fish camps – do not throw them in the water. Although you are not intentionally feeding alligators when you do this, the end result can be the same.
• Observe and photograph alligators only from a safe distance. Remember, they are an important part of Florida’s natural history as well as an integral component of freshwater ecosystems.
• Leave alligators alone. State law prohibits killing, harassing or possessing alligators except under permit.
• Never remove an alligator from its natural habitat or accept one as a pet. It is illegal and dangerous to do so. Handling even small alligators can result in injury.
• If an alligator bites you, the best thing to do is fight back, providing as much noise and resistance as possible.
Share Your Story with Adam
Adam Walser has spent more than a decade fighting for what’s right in Tampa Bay as part of the I-Team. He’s helped expose flaws in Florida’s eldercare system and held leaders accountable for how they use your tax dollars. Reach out to Adam with any issue you think he needs to investigate.
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