Even though several alligators have been spotted here recently, Limestone County will not be one of the featured areas in August for the state’s first regulated alligator hunting season.

Fifty hunters will be randomly selected by computer over the next several weeks to participate in the hunt, Gov. Bob Riley announced this week.

Alligators, some reportedly as long as 8 feet, have been spotted in Limestone County in various locations in the past few weeks, including the Tennessee and Elk rivers.

Athens resident Tony Grigsby and friends were in a canoe on Blackwell Swamp near Greenbrier recently when they spotted a large gator warming on the creek bank.

“That thing was huge,” Grigsby said. “That was a while back. Now, I’m wondering how much he has grown since then?”

Turner Roberts Jr. snapped a picture of another large alligator this month in the Tennessee River near the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant.

“I live near Poplar Point and was on Hawkins Drive,” Roberts said. “A friend of mine lives there and I had stopped by and he was telling me that he had spotted a gator there in his slough the previous day. So I hung out with him for more than an hour and sure enough it came up from the far side.

“I had time to run home and get my kayak and I figured it was about 4 feet long, so I thought, ‘No biggie,’ and I’ll ease out there and see how close I could get.”

“I started taking pictures from far out, because I figured it would go under at any time, but it never did. I had laid my kayak paddle across my lap, and that gator went right under the 2-foot portion of my paddle and just his head was about a foot and a half long so I’m guessing he was around 8 feet. Then he went under right beside me,” Roberts said.

“I was just very calm and didn’t try to spook him and it was great,” he added.

Applications for the state hunt will be taken from 8 a.m. Thursday to 7 a.m. Aug. 7 at www.outdooralabama.com. The 50 selected hunters must complete a training course by the state Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division on Aug. 18 in Spanish Fort to receive an Alligator Possession Tag for the hunt, state officials said. The hunters will be allowed to capture one alligator six feet in length or longer.

Hunters must pay a $6 application fee and may apply only once. Only Alabama residents 16 years or older with a valid hunting license may participate.

The state opened the season in parts of Mobile and Baldwin counties to control the alligator population, which has grown from near extinction to a nuisance, state officials said.

Alligators were initially brought to Wheeler Wildlife Refuge in the 1920s, and about 50 were released there in the late 1970s in a controversial effort to repopulate. A park ranger estimates about 50 or 60 gators currently live in the refuge.

“Alabama took action nearly 70 years ago and became the first state in the nation to protect alligators,” Riley said. “That action helped save alligators from possible extinction and led to their full recovery. Today, alligators are so numerous in certain areas that it is necessary to control their populations through a regulated alligator hunting season.”

Even though there have been numerous sightings in the county, alligators have not injured or posed a threat to humans.