In Anahuac, the Alligator Capital of Texas, Gators Are Big Business

The blaring horn sounds, and a line of pickup trucks pull in. These signs mean the hourly Great Alligator Roundup, held at Anahuac’s annual Texas Gatorfest, has begun, and it’s time to measure the latest catch.

Steve Wells and his guiding team pull out an alligator they caught and killed earlier that morning roughly a mile from park grounds. “I think this one is the biggest of the day,” someone whispers, as officials string up the gator’s lifeless body to weigh and later display it for all festival attendees to see. After several photo ops, the hefty 602-pound reptile is lowered to the ground; it measures just over 13 feet from snout to tail. On-site experts estimate that it could have been around 100 years old — a dinosaur in its own right.

“We’re gonna show him honor,” says Wells, of Friendswood, Texas, before the alligator is swept off into a truck and put on ice. Soon, he’ll be a combination of ground gator meat — churned into sausage, boudin, or deep-fried nuggets; his hide made into leather boots, a purse, or possibly a full-body mount for hunters to beam over. Though the sight of a dead alligator is somewhat unsettling for those unfamiliar with the tradition, it’s all a part of the town’s historic process to keep its alligator population under control.

Since 1987, Anahauc, the official alligator capital of Texas, has held the Texas Gatorfest, a celebration dedicated to the area’s most popular — and overpopulated — animal. The Lone Star State designated Anahuac, a small Texas town where alligators outnumber people three to one, as its alligator capital in 1989. “There are no predators that prey on the alligator. They would go unchecked if it wasn’t for this festival,” says Samantha Humphrey, the public information officer for Chambers County, where Anahuac is located.

But the thriving alligator population wasn’t always this way. The story goes that in the 1950s and 1960s, alligators in the U.S. were nearly extinct due to overhunting and listed as “endangered” in 1967. The country soon banned alligator hunting. Texas followed, offering full protection of the species in 1969, later passing the Texas Endangered Species Act in 1973 to further emphasize its danger of extinction. The ensuing laws “really provided an opportunity for alligators to flourish,” Humphrey says. “But not only did the alligator population rebound, it became too much for the ecosystem to sustain.” Alligators were soon overeating fish, crabs, and anything they could prey on. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the state’s agency that manages and protects its outdoor parks and wildlife habitats, finally implemented a population management strategy in 1984 that regulated alligator hunting, giving hunters and local landowners permits with designated tags allotted for alligator hunts. In 1987, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took alligators off the endangered species list, and Anahuac officially launched its alligator festival to bring awareness to the mission.

“We love them,” Humphrey says of alligators. “We have a whole festival dedicated to them. We talk about them all the time. We respect them, and we want to make sure we’re doing the best we can for them to have a healthy future.”

At Fort Anahuac Park, overlooking marshland where actual alligators rove, Gatorfest draws in around 30,000 people from around the state for gator-themed activities. There’s an on-site carnival, alligator wrangling demonstrations, a beer garden, airboat rides, gator-themed souvenirs from various merchants, cutesy youth Gatorfest pageants, a barbecue cook-off with an alligator category, and plenty of food. The county goes as far as encouraging food stalls to use alligator meat by discounting their vendor fees if they feature gator dishes. In previous years, vendors have gotten creative, featuring a bevy of Cajun-inspired, Southeast Texas dishes, like alligator sauce pecan, a tomato-based stew; alligator nachos; fried gator bites; alligator sausage; and — a crowd-favorite festival staple — deep-fried alligator on a stick. “We want to encourage people to utilize alligators,” Humphrey says. “That’s what the festival is about.”

The hourly alligator roundup, however, is the most popular event, when hunters are challenged to bring in the longest alligator for a cash prize. Depending on the season — which, for core counties like Chambers, spans a short 20 days from September 10 to September 30 — and how successful hunters are, the festival could see anywhere from 30 to 60 alligators a day, many of which are typically brought in “fresh,” caught and killed just a few hours before their display.

Annie Mulligan

“This is something that we’ve been doing for a long time,” says Jay Foster, a longtime competitor and local hunter who was featured in the ninth season of the History channel’s Swamp People. The reality show has helped document the world of alligator hunting in Louisiana and select areas of the South for 15 seasons. Foster, who works with duck and alligator hunting guide company Cajun Outback, caught an 11-foot, 5-inch alligator on Saturday, September 14. A 12-year-old girl on the guided trip was pulling the line. “Farm-to-table,” Foster says with a grin. Not too shabby, though the one he caught was more than a foot shy of the winning alligator earlier that day. (According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the American gator can measure anywhere from 6 to 14 feet.)

“We’re just trying to conserve what we have by hunting them, and that may not make sense to a lot of people, but you have to take some out of the gene pool to help them thrive,” Foster says.

The festival also promotes the sale and sustainable use of alligator meat, with officials and partners particularly adamant that all parts of alligator carcasses, including those featured in the festival’s competitions, are used in their entirety. Porter’s Processing & Alligator Farm, an Anahuac-based company that is considered the largest alligator processing company in Southeast Texas, transforms all Gatorfest catches and around 600 alligators caught during Texas’s core season into edible meat and trophy-worthy hide, says co-owner Lindsay Hedges. Hides sent to a tannery in Georgia are later morphed into leather products or mounts, while the meat undergoes a lengthy process at Porter’s, where it is deboned, cut up, soaked overnight in a vinaigrette mix, tenderized twice, and then vacuum-sealed in 1- or 5-pound packages, Hedges says. Much of the alligator’s white meat is specifically packaged for restaurants, while the red meat is sent to meat markets, where Hedges says it’s typically used in sausage.

Porter’s clients include New Orleans Seafood Kitchen and Four Seasons Hotel Houston, as well as restaurants in Kemah and wholesale companies in Beaumont. Hedges says Porter’s also helps with conservation efforts by collecting, incubating, and hatching alligator eggs before exporting them to facilities in Louisiana where they are raised.

Hedges and Foster both acknowledge that not everyone is thrilled about the celebration of alligator hunting, but, for them, it all goes back to population control. “We’re doing it with the utmost respect and conservation in mind,” Foster says. “The hunters care as much about these animals as anybody else.”