Eleven hunters, selected at random from 1,203 applicants, will each be allowed to take two alligators from the nearly 150,000-acre Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge between mid-August and early October. Animal rights activists plan to stage protests at the entry to the park on Friday night, when the hunters arrive. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this year approved the hunt after more than a decade of debate. Florida has held alligator hunts in parts of the state since 1988 to help curb growing populations, however this hunt will be inside a wildlife sanctuary that is one of the last remaining pieces of the northern Everglades.
Hunters set to stalk alligators for first time in Florida wildlife preserve
