A freshwater beast once so loathed that sport fishermen used to deliberately kill it instead of releasing it back into the wild is getting a shot at a comeback in rivers around Illinois.
The alligator gar is a massive, freshwater fish with a long, rectangular jaw similar to an actual alligatorthough it is known to be shy and not a threat to swimmers. The species is so ancient it once swam alongside dinosaurs and it can grow up to 10 feet and weigh as much as 300 pounds. It can live 50 to 100 years, biologists say.
But habitat destruction wiped out the gentle giant from waterways in its northern range, including Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. Today, alligator gar swim in dwindling numbers around waterways in the Gulf states.
Illinois received its first batch of alligator gar fry, as the babies are known, from Mississippi in 2010. A restocking program ran for four years until it was put on hold in 2014 due to some administrative issues, said Dan Stephenson, chief of fisheries at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Biologists got the project back up and running this summer, and several hatcheries are now rearing a new batch of young fish.
The fish even got the state’s partisan politicians to find common ground. Legislators, who haven’t agreed on an annual budget in more than a year, passed in May a resolution that protects alligator gar and other native gar species and defended the river monster’s virtues.
For a century, gar have been misnamed as nuisances, threats to sportfish, trash fish’, or worse, it reads, but noted that sport fishermen have rediscovered the fish’s charms.
Biologists will release the next round of young fish into the wild in the fall, when the 12- to 18-inch fish will be large enough to stand a chance against predators that could gobble them up.
When they reach maturity, in about a decade, alligator gar will be at the top of the Illinois aquatic food chain. They will even feed on Asian carp, an invasive species the state has to control with electric fences. Still, the hungry alligator gar won’t eat enough Asian carp to affect the invader’s population.
Other states, like Kentucky, Arkansas and Mississippi, have launched similar programs to bring back or bolster the species.
The flood of appreciation marks a true turnaround for the beleaguered species, which early settlers found so disarming they wanted to kill it off, Mr. Stephenson said.
In the early days, if you caught a gar you had to throw it on the ground and kill it, he said.
Nowadays, avid bowfishers from Illinois will travel to Texas or Louisiana to score what is now considered a trophy catch, said Ed DeVries, president of the Bowfishing Association of Illinois.
They’re big, they have a lot of meat, very good-tasting, Mr. DeVries said. We’re really excited to have them back in Illinois.
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