Mississippi’s alligator hunters can start buying permits on Tuesday, but they’ll have to move fast.

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks has changed the process for issuing permits from a drawing to a first-come, first-served online sale.

Ricky Flynt, the MDWFP’s alligator program coordinator, said the elimination of the drawing is intended to require people to put up the money for the permit before obtaining one.

“We’ve discovered that about 25 percent of the hunters every year are not participating in the hunts annually,” Flynt said. “Nothing has changed in alligator hunting season, except we’ve done away with the drawing and the process you obtain the permits.”

Only 920 permits will be available when they’re offered for sale starting Tuesday at 9 a.m. at mdwfp.com.

The 2015 Mississippi public waters alligator hunting season begins Aug. 28 and runs through Sept. 7.

Permits are now limited to residents only, and each person is limited to one permit in a hunting zone of their choice, if available. Payment for the possession permit and the alligator hunting license must be submitted immediately and is non-refundable and non-transferable.

“We were desiring to improve the participation among the people who get permits,” Flynt said. “From the application process, a significant number of people putting in the applications had no interest or knowledge on hunting. Many of those permits were going unused.”

To be eligible for an alligator permit, hunters must be at least 16 years old and have a valid Mississippi combination hunting or fishing license.

Hunting permits will now cost $150 and will require the additional purchase of a $25 alligator license. Each permit will allow hunters to harvest two alligators over 4 feet long, and only one gator 7 feet long.

It is suggested customers obtain their hunting or fishing license by today, three days before the sale.

“When a person goes on July 14 and if you don’t have a hunting or fishing license, then it will be an additional process a customer will have to do before getting the alligator permit,” Flynt said. “It will speed up the process of buying the permit.”

Mandatory attendance for the alligator hunting training class has now become voluntary.

Flynt said the class has been around for 10 years and 5,000 people have been trained in the alligator hunting process.

“Majority of those people were not first time alligator hunters. They’ve been involved with the process and are familiar,” Flynt said. “We still have the course for the first time hunters. We saw no need to require those people to attend if they knew those processes before hand.”

Course topics include alligator biology, research projects, legal capturing and dispatching methods, skinning and processing.

Last year there were 682 gators harvested in Mississippi. While there’s no way to gauge the number of expected gators this year, Flynt hopes participation and the number of harvested gators will go up.

“With higher river levels during alligator season, traditionally it seems to provide for better access to the hunters and increase their success,” Flynt said.