It was another good weekend of alligator hunting for a local group, but this one was extra special.

Steve Ballard, Jarrod Pettie, Tyler Martin and Travis Martin tagged an 8-foot, 10-inch gator Saturday night in the Mobile Delta.

“This alligator was also donated to the State of Alabama’s Marine Science Institution – Dauphin Island Sea Lab,” Travis Martin said. “Dr. Alison Robertson was very excited to receive the donation. They will be able to study the health of the Mobile Delta alligator population, diet, etc.”

Martin said that Robertson was there and taking samples of the alligators caught.

“They can’t take an alligator without a tag, either,” he said.

It was then that Robertson asked them to donate the carcass if they weren’t going to use it.

“Steve just decided to donate the whole thing,” Martin said.

This was the second gator the group has tagged in two weekends.

Previously they killed an 11-foot, 2-inch gator that weighed 379.5 pounds at Roland Cooper State Park in Camden as part of the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division conservation hunt.

At this past weekend’s hunt, 85 alligators were brought in. Sea Lab officials took 70 samples and collected 20 full carcasses.

Alligators are the resident apex predators in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and surrounding watersheds, Sea Lab officials said.

“Alligators are very good bio indicators of ecosystem health in swamps, rivers, bayous, and marshes, because they are widespread yet have low genetic and ecological variability,” Robertson said.

Robertson and Dr. Will Patterson with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the University of South Alabama, work collaboratively with the ADCNR biologists to collect samples from the animals with consent from the hunters. The samples allow the team to learn more about population health and connectivity. This project was initiated in Summer 2014 through pilot funding from the USA Center for Environmental Resilience, and is in its third year of sampling.

“It is extremely challenging to sample live alligators, which makes this hunt an asset to research,” Robertson said.