How commerce, not the feds, saved the alligator: hunting can do more good than the Endangered Species Act.

• Author: Weissmueller, Zach
• Position: Reason TV

IN JULY 2015, the Internet went on an outrage bender after a well-to-do American dentist killed a beloved Zimbabwean lion known as Cecil. The backlash was so strong that the offending dentist briefly went into hiding; when he returned to work months later, a troop of angry protesters camped outside his office, awaiting the opportunity to call him a cold-blooded killer to his face.

In the United States, hunting big beautiful animals is a cultural taboo. But does that prohibition do more harm than good? When governments legalize the trade of valuable animals, moving the practice out of the black market, it actually helps sustain their populations.

That's exactly what happened with one iconic North American predator: the American alligator. At one time, there was doubt about whether the species would survive. Today, gators in the Gulf Coast states number in the millions. While federal agencies and some conservation groups like to credit the 1973 Endangered Species Act for the animal's recovery from near-extinction, the state-level regulators who actually oversaw its comeback have a different explanation. Theirs is a story of hunting, harvesting, commerce, and conservation working together for the greater good.

One person who had a swamp-level view is Tommy Hines, who ran Florida's alligator management program in the 1960s and '70s. A key element of Hines' strategy was a willingness to work with hunters and traders.

"The idea that the Endangered Species Act was responsible for the alligator's recovery is a myth," he says. "Those people who are most interested in the conservation of alligators in many cases are those who depend upon them for their livelihood."

Hines gives more credit to a 1969 amendment to the Lacey Act that required states to tag and track alligator hides. This opened up the alligator harvesting industry and created a strong incentive to ensure there would be a thriving population of the animals for years to...