By Janet McConnaughey
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Once-endangered alligators are thriving in the wild, so Louisiana authorities are proposing a deep cut in the percentage that farmers must return to marshes where their eggs were laid.
“Over the past 50 years, alligator nest surveys have increased from an estimate of less than 10,000 in the 1970s and 1980s to well over 60,000 nests in recent years,” the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission said in a notice published Wednesday. “This increase in nesting has produced a population that can now be sustained with a much lower farm return rate.”