Honest opinions wanted

[nutmeg]

People who don't live in Texas probably don't understand just how bad the feral hog problem is here. Before I moved here I would never shoot anything I didn't intend to eat. Hogs here are the exception. They're are as bad as rats in the city. we keep the small ones and as many as we need and leave the rest. It's not uncommon to see them laying on the side of a county road or drapped over a fence. BTW, y'all can't believe how quickly the buzzards and yotes get rid of a dead pig. (nut)

[S.C. Hunter]

I would not shoot and leave any animal with that intent in mind. With that I also understand the problem they cause with regards to food supply to other animals. If the area in question is that bad I would try to organize a hunt that would take as many animals as allowed and arrange the donation of the meat to a shelter or poor people in the community.

[JDeanP]

It depends on the pig. He'd have to be one real charming pig. He'd have to be at least ten times more charming than that Arnold on Green Acres.

Couldn't help myself.

[Bowwild]

Hogs are very destructive of habitat and extremely prolific. The are considered a nuisance most places they exist and highly illegal to move around (stock) in many states.  

I'm not a hog hunter. However, I hunted hogs as a guest on a ranch in Texas and it was great fun. I shot a solid black, long haired boar that weighted (according to my host) 225 pounds. He had beautiful big tusks that protruded well outside his month - more dangerous looking to me than the black bears I've killed.  My host advised me against eating the hog because it was a boar, which surprised me. I didn't know this before I killed it.  But I allowed him to drag the hog to a dump. It seemed like a terrific waste.  I suppose the advice against eating this boar was "hogwash" (pun intended.

I'd hunt them again if I had the opportunity but I'd make arrangements to butcher and eat any I killed.

[champ38]

I say, Pile em Up.... eat what you want...leave the others to rest. Those piggys demolished my food plots last year  :mad:

[S.C. Hunter]

I am a little surprised with some of the answers. I will say at least they are honest answers and a man or woman can never be ill judged for telling the truth. I do wonder how we sometimes make judgements about compound hunters that we see on the hunting programs. We judge them for all the graphic shots and the fact they use terms like management deer or hog. The fact they shoot bear over baits or deer over food plots and wait in a tree for the deer to pass to at least 50-60yds. We call these things unethical or not hunting. We have a precious resource in our wildlife and while we still have the ability to go out and hunt these creatures God has placed here for us, we need to use good judgement. We never know who may just look for these kinds of statements to use against us. Killing animals for no other reason than to kill is what they will say. I think we all owe it to ourselves to cherish what we have and keep our right to hunt as we find in this day and time our freedoms are being taken slowly but surely. Just a thought.

[TxAg]

I'll kill every one I see and not feel bad about it. I usually dress out the first one or two of the season and let the rest lay. I don't feel bad about it for a second. You wouldn't either if you live here and knew the truth.

Besides, they don't go to waste....there are too many coyotes and other hogs that eat the meat in one night. Rarely do you see much left over for the vultures.

I realize it may be different in other parts of the country, but with all the private land in TX, we're asked to kill them on site.

[flounder pounder]

Game warden around here tell us on the WMA, shoot all you see and if you dont want them leave them. You are right they are the most destructive animals on the planet. They are a blast to hunt, but once you have them on your property you are not going to get rid of them. Down here, we hunt them, trap them, and hunt them with dogs year around and you only hope to keep the population from growing any larger than it was last year. They breed faster than rabbits.

[Shawn Leonard]

I myself would take the loins and both hams and leave the rest. I hate to waste any meat but if there are that many and my freezer is bulging than I would leave some but take the choice cuts. It is a personal choice and I do not feel any answer is wrong! Shawn

[Hookeye]

SC,

The anti hunting folks don't care if you hunt varmints or game animals with the utmost of ethics.

They don't want you killing anything, and blasting feral swine and leaving them to lay offers them no springboard.

IMHO, most of the non hunting folks are in this group: If they don't see it, or have to pay for it, they are not against it.

They know to some extent how the world works, are content to let it work as it must without their being forced to take notice of any details.

Read: Don't gut shoot one and have it flounder in their backyard, squeeling, while they're trying to watch Oprah in the sunroom.

They'll have to put down the junk food and get up, draw the blinds. Might miss a Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil statement, and that would honk them off!

[jim phenes]

we have alot of ground hogs where i live, ya know what if i shoot one i eat it. i have a hard time not consuming what i harvest, i have eaten carp muskrat, beaver,and coon. if you look up some old recipes from grannys cook book you will find not much they didnt eat back then, to each his own but i would drag and eat if it were me.

[Hookeye]

No thanks.

I'm not keen on ingesting copper fragments from my Nosler 70gr BT's.

[mambashooter]

Feral hogs taste nothing like the pork you purchase in a store. I kill them ...no way I would eat those nasty critters.Most buzzards wouldn't eat a feral hog.

[KEG]

I don't believe in killing for the sake of killing, but the hogs are not native species and are ruining the ecosystem. If you cannot use the meat I think it is OK to kill them and leave the carcass if it does not cause a problem. In some places these animals are no more than vermin.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

The guys who aren't anywhere close to a hog problem are the ones who say if you aren't going to eat it, don't kill it. If they had hogs running amuck all over their hunting grounds and plowing up their soybean fields they would change their tune Tout Suite!

Hogs are an infestation just like rats, sewer rats, garbage rats, swamp rats, and nutria. They need to be exterminated or they will ruin all the good hunting property everywhere eventually.
If you sent somebody into your house to exterminate a rat infestation, would you tell the exterminator to save them all so you could have a barbeque?? I think not.
Besides, you are only suppose to eat them in the winter because they carry parasites in their blood. In the summer the parasites are more prevelant than in the winter.
But that doesn't stop them from breeding and over populating, so the numbers still need to be controlled all year long.

Shoot them and leave them for the coyotes and possums, they gotta eat too!
I've eaten wild hog and I'd rather boil my hunting boots and eat them! We don't have wild hogs where I'm at yet, but if the numbers aren't controlled it won't be long and they will be here too. I don't want that.
We didn't have any armadillos here either until about 10 years ago and now they are everywhere. I kill those garden destroying pests every chance I get too, but I dang sure wouldn't eat one!
They carry Leprosy.......eeeewwww!

[bucksdown]

guys i was also raised to eat what i shoot, but i don't have hogs where i hunt, thought i would like it but after listening to you all, i think not. there all kinds of trad shoots across the country, why can't someone have one where there are hogs, i don't know! like a bass tournament,a pay back for the biggest, most, largest sow, largest boar, most boars, and the biggest prize most sows. and make money for charity or a needy family and food in there freezer. thats what i would call a 3D coarse. the last day let the people that are ok with killing and leaving them, go and do so. it would make a dent in the population for the one willing to give it a chance. you could have a hunt for compounds and crossbow shooters also. there are some that would say it won't make a dent in them, but every bit helps, and helps everything have a better chance to grow.

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Most ferals we shoot here are left.

[Burnsie]

After 7 pages with the majority saying "let them lay", "they are an infestation",  "coyotes need to eat too"....etc etc.  I am even more convinced that I will not be paying good money for a hog hunt.
Many have used the analogy of killing and not eating rats as the same thing as letting hogs lay.  I don't see many places offering high dollar rat hunts though.

[TSP]

Tough question and probably no universal 'right' answer, especially to the ethical side of the question.  The physical aspect of it seems an easier path.

We don't have hogs here so I can't even begin to imagine what herds of pigs chewing on everything in sight is really like.  But I CAN imagine the mess of leaving bunches of dead pigs to rot on the ground, in high heat, near waterways, in areas used by people.  Aside from the 'carnage/aesthetic' factor that's a very excellent way to spread/invite disease or surface/groundwater contamination far in excess of what mouse, rat or other pick-a-varmint control programs would generally cause.  Aren't we talking about large numbers of animals that can go up to 400# here?  That's a whole different ball game than your average rodent or coyote problem, if not in sheer numbers than at least in carcass biomass.

Leaving the landowner end of the pig management problem to the landowners and their respective state pest control programs (which begs the question of what is the state doing about it...another discussion topic I suppose) I'd agree that the best HUNTING management tool would be to require HUNTERS who kill pigs to either use the meat themselves, donate it to local or state-sponsored food banks (especially those that do the butchering themselves), remove it to ag compost sites where proper carcass disposal (burning or burying livestock) is available (maybe it's not..?), or as a last resort bury it on-site with landowner permission.  Seems to me that leaving pig carcasses to rot out in the open simply adds to the nuisance problem that you were trying to address in the first place, yes?

[TxAg]

Originally posted by TSP:
Tough question and probably no universal 'right' answer, especially to the ethical side of the question.  The physical aspect of it seems an easier path.

We don't have hogs here so I can't even begin to imagine what herds of pigs chewing on everything in sight is really like.  But I CAN imagine the mess of leaving bunches of dead pigs to rot on the ground, in high heat, near waterways, in areas used by people.  Aside from the 'carnage/aesthetic' factor that's a very excellent way to spread/invite disease or surface/groundwater contamination far in excess of what mouse, rat or other pick-a-varmint control programs would generally cause.  Aren't we talking about large numbers of animals that can go up to 400# here?  That's a whole different ball game than your average rodent or coyote problem, if not in sheer numbers than at least in carcass biomass.

Leaving the landowner end of the pig management problem to the landowners and their respective state pest control programs (which begs the question of what is the state doing about it...another discussion topic I suppose) I'd agree that the best HUNTING management tool would be to require HUNTERS who kill pigs to either use the meat themselves, donate it to local or state-sponsored food banks (especially those that do the butchering themselves), remove it to ag compost sites where proper carcass disposal (burning or burying livestock) is available (maybe it's not..?), or as a last resort bury it on-site with landowner permission.  Seems to me that leaving pig carcasses to rot out in the open simply adds to the nuisance problem that you were trying to address in the first place, yes?

I can's speak for everyone, but in Texas the carcass will be gone in a day or two. Coyotes are everywhere and so are bobcats and all the other hogs that didn't get shot. They'll finish off a pile of carcasses in short order. Besides, we also have fire ants, beetles, vultures, opossums, coons, and foxes to pick up the scraps. In fact, the local rancher asked us to dispose of our carcasses in his stock tanks so the fish and turtles would have something to eat.