the USA ferral hog situation ....

[JamesKerr]

I don't know what the solution is for the hog problem. I know I can't stand it when someone around where we hunt says they trapped some hogs and released them into a different area so they could hunt them, and thanks to our "legal" system the game wardens can't find the evidence of them releasing the hogs therefor they can't arrest them around southeast Arkansas. We just got pigs on our property this year thanks to some low life who released them nearby. In one year they have torn up our whole 400 acres.

[gregg dudley]

Great points all around.

In regards to farmers wanting to charge hunters to kill the pigs that are destroying their fields, ponder this...the state of Florida charges people to capture and kill invasive snakes in the Everglades...

 

[GRINCH]

I've got a friend with 200 acres on the river,he complains about the hogs but won.t let anyone hunt,I told him to quit complaining.

[Aunty]

I have been reading this thread very closely we have the same problem here guys releasing pigs into patches of bush they were never in. Noe I have pigs starting to root up my paddocks but hey I have a bow       if they get real bad I will call in selected pig dog hunters to deal with them ad for paying to hunt     i will never charge someone to hunt on my farm and I have never been asked to pay the only thing I'm iffy about is strangers on my farm eg harassing stock leaving gates open ect I'm not shy to a bottle to grog as I give grog to all the farmers farms that I hunt on. Just my 2 cents

[WDELongbow]

Simple Solution:  Some of the gov stimulus $ should have gone toward a "hog bounty" to eliminate these pests across this great country.  I think $500/hog would be enough incentive for people to kill about every hog in this country.  Need about a 5 yr open season, year-round.  Or heck, since budget figures go into trillions, let's make it $1,000 per hog.  Don't think this would work?  In the 1700's and early 1800's, deer were hunted for their hides until nearly extinct across much of the Southeast, largely by the Creek Indians (I know, counterintuitive that they were not conservationists).  The deer I hunt today in Alabama have genetics from Michigan herds and other locations because they were transplanted due to almost non-existent local herds.  If the price is right, we could take the hogs out!  Seem absurd, uneducated, etc?  Let me ask you, where has all of that stimulus $ gone?  I don't see any benefit.  Killing hogs would make more sense to me.  The meat could be processed and used to feed the poor as well as suplement people who are now on food stamps. At $1,000/hog, farmers would either hunt or trap them themselves or allow others to hunt them, and give them a cut of the $. All of the talk about "hog demographics", "research", etc.  The solution is as old as original sin.  Hunters could solve this problem!  Money talks!

[flinter]

Here in western Washington, some one released a bunch of them about 15 years ago. The game dept. posted info on where to find them, they wanted them gone. You could hunt them with anything from a slingshot to a loaded Dodge Ram. No license, or fees of any kind just get them!!! In a couple of years they were gone. I was kind of hoping they would make it, but they didn,t. I hear how destructive they are, but the thought of having game to hunt all year sounded  good.

[TRADARROW71]

The last hog I shot was pregnant with 6 piglets.  I feel no remorse whatsoever.  I tell the guys that lease our ranch down here in South Texas to shoot them, even if they don't want them.  They usually do though.  My hunting dosen't stop.  I hunt all year round for hogs.  I think that If hunters were to take advantage of this "resource" and make more of an effort to kill them, not so much for the meat, but for the preservation of the habitat, and of course the practice, maybe more of a dent in the population can be made.  It takes alot of people putting forth an effort though.

[Hud]

Bounty $15/head, $25 for sows, or hire professional hunters, and pay landowner's to hunt them or allow hunters in.

[SteveB]

Are the hunters that are being turned down seeking permission to "help" the landowner with his problem hogs showing up with a rifle offering to kill everyone they see? Or are they seeking a place to bowhunt?

a bounty seems to be a good idea to rid an area of pigs , but i don't think the bounty would be more than what  a hog would bring at market so it might have to go by weight,,...... but they are so widely infested across the southern states..theyre there to stay,....

  i do'nt know a damn thing about pigs,exept i want to hunt them...someday

[Kevin Dill]

Landowner complains about wild pigs tearing up his property.

Man shows up with longbow, wood arrows, and says "I'm here to help".

(Cue the laugh track here....)

[Troy Breeding]

Kevin,

You forgot the last line of that story.

Farmer still has hog problem.    

(Now cue laugh track....)

[cacciatore]

Here we have a all year around open season and hunters use dogs,still we have them,but not that distruptive like before.

[Fishnhunt]

Relatively speaking, very few landowners in Texas have the money (or the desire) to purchase/stock deer and have a deer farm operation on their place. The majority of hunters in Texas hunt on a) private ranches they own b) private ranches they lease or c) public land.....and the majority of all of those places are fenced by "low fence or no fence" (generally old 6 string barbed wire fences that are in various states of disrepair and easy to pass thru hop over).  Just because someone has driven down I-10 and seen a a few high fences does not mean its the norm for hunting in Texas.  I've been hunting in Texas on private and public land for more than 2 decades and never hunted a high fence outfit, let a alone a stocked deer farm.  And I hunt 50+ days a year at 10 or so different destinations each year.

With regard to hogs, hunting is not an effective way to eradicate them. Trapping is much better. I'm not saying that hogs should be eradicated, HOWEVER, if one was so inclined.... the state would need to trap the wild hogs, administer something like Cholera to them, and set them back into the wild to spread the disease.  Hogs and humans are so alike disease-wise that the hogs would probably mutate the Cholera and end up killing all the humans on the planet. lol.

[Kevin Dill]

One hour south of my home:

 http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/Feral_Swine_Attacks_Woman_in_Lawrence_County_Ohio__135890173.html

State of Ohio update:

 http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/hunting__trapping/HuntingandTrappingSubhomePage/WildBoarHuntingInformation/tabid/18847/Default.aspx

[tuscarawasbowman]

Originally posted by Fishnhunt:
HOWEVER, if one was so inclined.... the state would need to trap the wild hogs, administer something like Cholera to them, and set them back into the wild to spread the disease.  Hogs and humans are so alike disease-wise that the hogs would probably mutate the Cholera and end up killing all the humans on the planet. lol.

Problem with that is hog cholera and many of the other diseases are transferrable back to domestic pigs. That's why I was also wondering about the "Hog b gone" in the article. If that stuff can be transfered thru breeding or blood contact back to domestic pigs no farmer in his right mind is going to want them using that.

[gregg dudley]

Originally posted by SteveB:
Are the hunters that are being turned down seeking permission to "help" the landowner with his problem hogs showing up with a rifle offering to kill everyone they see? Or are they seeking a place to bowhunt?

Right.  Few people have the stomach to really do what it would take to make a difference in the population.  Most people just want to kill the occassional pig.

[Kevin Dill]

Originally posted by gregg dudley:
 

Originally posted by SteveB:
Are the hunters that are being turned down seeking permission to "help" the landowner with his problem hogs showing up with a rifle offering to kill everyone they see? Or are they seeking a place to bowhunt?

Right.  Few people have the stomach to really do what it would take to make a difference in the population.  Most people just want to kill the occassional pig. [/b]

Which explains why farmers may turn down hunters in this context.

It also points out the 100% fallacy that feral populations can be controlled or eliminated by sport hunters.

Look at Hawaii as an example of how feral animals have invaded and damaged an ecosystem. The answer is not found in hunters. The answer is removal by trapping, poisoning and wholesale killing by any safe and tolerable means. I don't have them on my land yet. If they ever show up, my next purchase will be a .243 Winchester with a 14x scope. I am not a feral pig lover.

[chopx2]

Re leasing hogs seems to me no less a crime than poaching. There should be a state license on every "legal" trapper's trap so we can tell the difference and a hotline for reporting illegal traps and releases, reward and stiff penalties and even jail time.

I believe many people "know" who is doing it, but don't feel the public pressure to report it like they would if someone killed a 200pt whitetail out of season or with an illegal method.

I also know of people who have had their leases illegally trapped by non-members. Kind of ironic.

[Tom Leemans]

I've seen them in the river bottom swamps here before. My personal thought is that if I saw a feral hog, I'd shoot it if I could. I'm all for following the letter of the law, but if it were illegal here you'd never hear about the one(s) I shot.