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Alligator gar: Help for a long-lived leviathan
Growing to 13 feet, 300 pounds, the behemoths have suffered from changes in habitat and an unfair reputation as a threat to game fish
By Craig Springer
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Alligator gar
Courtesy of eAngler.com
They're outcasts, much maligned and misunderstood. Despite tremendous sportfishing potential, the alligator gar has suffered in the court of public opinion.
Growing to 13 feet and 300 pounds with a penchant for fish fare, these behemoths have gained an unfair reputation as a nuisance, a threat to game fish.
But it's truly an unfair perception, according to Kerry Graves, manager of Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery in Oklahoma.
"Alligator gar eat rough fish. They eat sick fish easily caught," said Graves.
"Game fish benefit from the gar's eating habits. If anything, game fish suffer from the same thing that plagues alligator gar poor habitat."
Alligator gar are a species in decline, in need of restoration, and there's an information gap that needs filled.
Kerry Graves
Alligator gar are a big-river fish, a top of the food chain predator once found through the Mississippi River and the lower end of its tributaries.
Its range has shrunk. Meandering rivers have been turned into sand-bottom trapezoidal channels devoid of habitat. Spring floods no longer pour into the bottomlands where alligator gar spawn.
"Alligator gar are a species in decline, in need of restoration, and there's an information gap that needs filled," said Graves.
Ricky Campbell at Private John Allen National Fish Hatchery in Mississippi agrees:
"There's a lot we need to know about this species. We still need to learn the basic information, like techniques for spawning, holding and rearing things well known for other fishes."
Gary Wyatt, Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery, hangs on to a 110-pound alligator gar from Oklahoma's Red River.
Between the expertise at Tishomingo and Private John Allen hatcheries, the information gap is closing. They've spawned alligator gar three times and put young fish on feed, but that's just a start.
Fish from Private John Allen have already been stocked in the wild for a restoration project in Tennessee.
The alligator, the largest of all gar, get their name from their distinctive, reptilian head. They can be distinguished from all other gar species by the two rows of teeth in the upper jaw, their short, broader snout and their size when fully grown.
Gars most closely resemble the species in the pike family muskies, Northern pike, chain pickerel in body shape and fin placement, but gars have rounded tails, not forked.
Alligator gar, targeted by anglers and archers alike, are edible but hardly considered a food fish. When eaten, their meat is normally served smoked. Alligator gar roe is poisonous, to birds, animals, and humans, but safe for other fish to eat. There is very little commercial interest in this fish.
Alan Peterson, a biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, sought assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with alligator gar.
"If it wasn't for the Fish and Wildlife Service, there would be no restoration project," said Peterson. "They are the project; we just tell them where to stock the fish."
More than 200 alligator gar were stocked in the Obion River in 1999. It's too soon to know if these long-lived fish survived, let alone reached maturity.
For alligator gar conservation to get traction, partnerships between agencies are a necessity. An unusual partnership with the private sector has proved essential in Oklahoma.
Anglers familiar with alligator gar are gathering data and tagging big adults they catch and release under the guidance of Brent Bristow, at the Oklahoma Fishery Resources Office, an arm of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The anglers also have helped bring alligator gar to the Tishomingo hatchery. Graves and his staff are engaged in age and growth studies and trying to determine optimal culture conditions.
Alligator gar conservation typifies putting scientific know-how and partnerships to work. Early intervention bodes well for these leviathans of lazy rivers.
Craig Springer is a fishery biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Southwest Region. He covers 17 field stations that work with anything from paddlefish in the Mississippi to rare Apache trout in the Arizona high country. Springer can be reached at craig_springer@fws.gov or (505) 248-6867.
