ESTABLISHED 1879 | COLUMBUS, MISSISSIPPI C DISPATCH.COM FREE! TUESDAY | JUNE 19, 2018 How to catch a gator: Reagan shares alligator research stories with Rotarians BY ALEX HolloWAY ‘How hard can it be?’” he said to Noxubee Wild-
[email protected] the Starkville Rotary Club at the life Refuge club’s weekly meeting Monday. “In Director Steve When Steve Reagan moved to wildlife and science you go the li- Louisiana in 1998, he had no idea Reagan shows brary and you look up all kinds of a noose used he’d end up capturing hundreds of research and do all kinds of neat to capture alli- alligators. things. We know everything there gators during Reagan, the current director is to know about alligators.” a talk to the for the Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee Starkville Almost all alligator knowledge at Wildlife Refuge, said he’d planned Rotary Club. to take a job studying Louisiana the time — and to this day, Reagan Reagan stud- black bears at Louisiana State Uni- later pointed out — came from one ied alligators versity. When those plans fell apart, book, published in 1935: “The Alli- for three he went to work for the zoo in Baton gator’s Life History” by E.A. McIl- years in the Rouge. As part of that, he crafted a henry. late 1990s The first night in Louisiana, Rea- while working proposal to study alligators. on his doctor- At the time, he knew nothing gan, his wife and his professor went ate at Loui- about alligators — he just wanted out on the bayou to find an alliga- siana State to work with animals.