Record alligator harvest for Arkansas 2025 season

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officials said the 2025 alligator season produced a record harvest.

Officials said 205 alligators were checked for 2025, beating the previous record of 202 checked in 2023. The 2025 amount was one above the 204 quota for the season.

We’re really happy with the outcome this year,” AGFC Herpetologist Amanda Bryant said. “We always want 100% of the quota to be filled so it’s great when that happens.”

Bryant explained that the quota is exceeded when multiple hunters take an animal in the same night and only one or two animals remain to close the season.

“It’s pretty common,” she said. “We set the quota a few animals short of the total needed harvest with this in mind.”

Officials said hunters on public land filled 26 of the 38 drawn public land tags available. The success rate of 68% was an improvement over last year’s 58% hunter success on public land, they said.

This year’s Millwood Lake hunt totaled seven checked alligators, leaving two tags open at the end of the first year of this area’s quota hunt, officials said.

On private land, Alligator Management Zone 3 in southeast Arkansas had the most successful hunters, with 106 checked during the two weekends of the hunt, according to officials. Hunters in Alligator Management Zone 1 in southwest Arkansas checked 69 alligators, and hunters in south-central Arkansas Alligator Management Zone 2 harvested four.