Tag, You're It: Tracking Alligator Gar in the Panhandle

The 100-pound alligator gar floated quietly in a tank at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Blackwater Research and Development Center in the Panhandle. After carefully tagging the gar with an acoustic transmitter, the FWC team—led by Fisheries Biologist Matt Wegener—released the fish back into the Yellow River.

Alligator gar can grow to more than 300 pounds and live for decades—Wegener’s team estimated the specimen at 50 years of age. The FWC has been tracking this species using telemetry, part of a study to estimate population levels.

Alligator gar eat other fish species, usually carp or shad or buffalo, though occasionally they also eat sportfish. In brackish water they have been known to go after blue crabs, and there are reports of gar eating ducks or other small mammals.

In addition to gills, alligator gar actually breathe air—an advantage during drought and other low-water conditions. In Florida, they are found only in Gulf Coast river systems west of Apalachicola. There are other, smaller gar species distributed widely around the state. The longnose gar (state record 41 pounds) ranges from about Lake Okeechobee north. The smaller spotted gar (state record 9.4 pounds) and similar Florida gar divide their respective ranges around the Ochlockonee River—spotted gar to the west, Florida gar along the peninsula.

Alligator gar have historically been overfished across their range. In other regions, state agencies actually removed the gar out of concern that they targeted sportfish—as just one example, Wegener explained that Texas had a 20-foot electrified barge called “the gar destroyer.”

While such practices were not common in Florida, the overall decline in population numbers as a result of draining and damming their habitat led the FWC to restrict all fishing—even catch-and-release—of alligator gar in the Sunshine State.

Seven years into the telemetry study, some results are in. “Fish tagged in the Yellow River spent most of their time not in the Yellow River,” Wegener explained.

The FWC team expanded their sampling, catching, and tagging work to brackish water in nearby Blackwater Bay, and found that the gar spend their fall and winter seasons there before migrating to the Escambia River in the spring.

“Migration to the Escambia River is likely due to spawning,” Wegener continues, “Based on the time of year and the genetic evidence, data suggests they spawn in one location—the Escambia River.”

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Wegener and his team are expanding their research to include tagging efforts in Pensacola Bay (I once spotted an alligator gar at Gulf Islands National Seashore). In fact, they’ve already tagged a gar near Pensacola Pass.

Researchers hope to discover additional spawning areas, in addition to the Escambia River. Alligator gar need just the right conditions to successfully lay eggs that will become the next generation of fish. “These areas are likely far from the main channel of the river, in floodplain areas with dense cypress forests. We will be using canoes and kayaks to search these areas, with lots of bug spray!” Wegener says.

Wegener wants to alleviate a common concern: “Alligator gar are not a detriment to sportfish populations (i.e., bass and bream) for two reasons. First, they consume a wide variety of different foods. Diet studies of alligator gar indicate they consume what is most abundant, including shad, mullet, and suckers.”

Second, “Alligator gar take a long time to reach sexual maturity and do not successfully spawn every year. Therefore, even if alligator gar developed an acquired taste for sportfish, there aren’t enough of them to reduce the abundance of sportfish that anglers would even notice.”

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• This article was featured in the December/January 2024 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click here to subscribe.