Crocodile farm

A crocodile farm or alligator farm is an establishment for breeding and raising of crocodilians in order to produce crocodile and alligator meat, leather from crocodile and alligator skin, and other goods. Many species of both alligators and crocodiles are farmed internationally. In Louisiana alone, alligator farming is a $60 to$70 million industry. Alligators and crocodiles are not truly domesticated and their being bred in farms probably began as late as the early 20th century. Most of the early businesses, such as St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, established in 1893, were farms in name only, primarily keeping alligators and crocodiles as a tourist attraction. Only in the 1960s did commercial operations that either harvested eggs from the wild or bred alligators on-site begin to appear. This was largely driven by diminishing stocks of wild alligators, which had been hunted nearly to extinction by that time. As the American alligator was placed under official protection in 1967 (under a law preceding the 1973 Endangered Species Act), farming alligators for skins became the most viable option for producing leather. Mostly concentrated in the Southern U.S. states of Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia, the practice quickly spread to other nations. Both the American and Chinese alligator are farmed intensively today, mostly within each species' respective native region. The Nile crocodile is found in ranches all over Africa, and the saltwater crocodile is farmed in Australia and other areas. The smaller caimans are generally not of enough market value to farm, though captive breeding of the spectacled caiman does take place in South America. Farming alligators and crocodiles first grew out of the demand for skins, which can fetch hundreds of dollars each. But alligator and crocodile meat, long a part of Southern cooking (especially Cajun cuisine) and some Asian and African cuisines, began to be sold and shipped to markets unfamiliar with crocodilian meat.