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RAW VIDEO Press conference: Gerald Clemons' July 1st arrest for stealing 133 alligator eggs off I-75. Watch »

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Gas prices, up. Food prices, up.

Alligator hides? Yep, they’re up, too.

Record high prices for alligator meat and hides, which sell for about $7.50 per pound of meat and $7.50 per belly centimeter for high grade skin, are the driving forces behind alligator egg poachers in Florida, said Allen Register, who along with his wife, Patty, owns Gatorama, a 51-year-old tourist attraction and alligator farm in Palmdale, southwest of Lake Okeechobee.

“Those eggs that are being poached in the wild, they’re going to farmers,” Allen Register said. “No one else has a use for them.”

Though officials said they haven’t necessarily seen an increase in poaching in recent years, poachers are out there, and occasionally they find a nest that has been plundered.

And even less frequently authorities catch a poacher in the act.

That’s exactly what appears to have happened in early July, when two officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission say they watched a Fort Myers man, boating in a canal along the Alligator Alley portion of Interstate 75, make several stops and repeatedly walk into the woods with two five-gallon buckets. When they stopped the man, identified as 49-year-old Gerald R. Clemons, he had more than 130 alligator eggs in the buckets, the FWC reported.

“That’s a lot, and it’s alarming, certainly,” FWC spokeswoman Gabriella B. Ferraro said.

On July 1, the two officers who were on routine patrol, Clinton Bean and Joshua Caraker, were watching Clemons near the 85 mile marker of Alligator Alley, reports said. When he approached the two officers, they smelled marijuana, stopped him and asked him what he was doing.

Clemons showed the officers the white buckets, and when he opened them, the officers found 133 alligator eggs and dirt, the FWC reported. Clemons did not attempt to resist the officers, Ferraro said.

“In fact, he was very forthcoming,” Ferraro said. “He spoke to our officers very candidly about what he was doing. He did say, ‘I took alligator eggs from at least 10 nests.’ ”

The FWC issues only 30 permits in the entire state allowing people to participate in the collection and distribution of wild alligator eggs.

Clemons was not one of the lucky 30.

He was arrested on three misdemeanor charges of possessing American alligator eggs, possessing marijuana and possessing drug paraphernalia. He was not booked into the Collier County jail, Ferraro said, but was instead issued a notice to appear in court.

“We certainly can’t speculate about what his intentions were,” Ferraro said. “However, he did mark the eggs with a marker. What that indicates to us is he didn’t want to reposition the eggs in any way. Repositioning the eggs would kill the embryo.”

The FWC turned 130 of the eggs over to Gatorama, kept two as evidence and sent one for forensic testing. Only about 30 to 40 of the 130 eggs are expected to develop into healthy embryos and hatch; a below average return, said Patty Register one of Gatorama’s owners.

Some of those eggs will be included in Gatorama’s hatching festival, running Aug. 22-Sept. 1, where participants can hatch an egg in their hand and hold the baby gator.

“About 10 percent of our production goes back to our tourist attraction,” Patty Register said. “The remainder are raised on our commercial farm for their meat and skin.”

Attempts to reach Clemons for comment were unsuccessful.

Chances are slim Clemons was taking the eggs to hatch and raise as pets, to make alligator omelettes with, or to concoct some sort of alligator aphrodisiac, Patty Register said. She said most poachers attempt to sell the eggs, which farmers legally purchase for $10 to $13, with $5 going to the FWC.

“They’re interested in selling that egg to an unscrupulous farmer,” Patty Register said. “Alligator skins and meat are at an all-time high. There’s always someone who wants to beat the system. I resent it.”

In the grand scheme of things, 130 alligator eggs is not a lot, officials said. Allen Register, the Florida collection coordinator, said a permitted collector could bring in 1,000 to 1,500 on an average day.

Alligator farmers caught with illegally obtained alligator eggs could potentially lose their farm, said Steve Stiegler, an FWC wildlife biologist. Because of the risk, few farmers are willing to purchase illegal eggs, meaning fewer poachers, he said.

Still, there are some farmers who take the risk.

“Who knows where these eggs were going,” Stiegler said. “It could be a Florida farm looking to acquire illegal eggs. The guy may have wanted to ship them out of state. He may have wanted to hatch them out himself for his own purposes.”

Farmers aren’t the only ones at risk for dealing with poached alligator eggs. Getting the eggs is risky in the first place, Ferraro said.

“Risky in that it’s a dangerous business,” Ferraro said.

“Mother alligator is right there. She’s very protective of her nest. So, certainly, not only are you breaking the law, but you’re risking life and limb by doing so. That’s why it is illegal.”