Image Number: N032189
Many of Florida's Native Americans hunted alligators for skin and food. This drawing was by French artist Jacques Le Moyne while stationed at the French colony of Fort Carolina on the banks of the St. Johns River. While the alligator's size was undoubtedly exaggerated in this illustration (perhaps by printer Theodore DeBry), there is some evidence that alligators at the time were larger than those found today.
Image Number: RC02126
Alligators have been hunted throughout the 19th and 20th centuries for food, their skin, for sport, and out of fear. Many steamship companies that operated in the 1800s advertised the opportunity to shoot alligators from their boats.
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Image Number: RC08273
Image Number: RC08515
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The captain belonged to Company G of the 4th Illinois Volunteers, staged in Jacksonville for the Spanish-American War.
Image Number: RC19775
Image Number: RC05447
Image Number: RC10561
Alligator hunters Hamp Hunter and Robert Burt in a boat built by Box Tedder specifically for alligator hunting.
Image Number: RC08183
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Image Number: PR00145
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"This is the man that killed the gaitors, there is 30 in the bunch. They run from 12 in. to 12 ft. long."
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Image Number: PC0178
Image Number: FW00328
By the 1960s, alligators were hunted to near extinction, leading the Federal and state laws banning the hunting of the species.
