Posted on 01/28/2024 11:54:55 AM PST by nickcarraway
Texas Agriculture suffers millions of dollars in damages from the invasion of feral hogs. So, Texas wants to know, what’s causing this feral hog invasion, and how do we deal with it?
Texas has the biggest feral hog population in the United States. It started as another grazing mouth on our landscape, but now it’s overpopulated and causing a problem for agricultural life.
“Pigs compete with native wildlife for forage,” Mike Bodenchuk, former state director of the Texas Wildlife Services Program, said. “They alter habitats, they foul the water sources. They predate on a lot of wildlife as well. Reptiles, ground-nesting birds, even fawns from deer can fall victim to feral hogs.”
And it’s not just agriculture and the ecosystem that the wild pigs impact. It’s causing issues for our farmers as well.
“I travel around the state to district meetings, county meetings… to discuss the issues that our members are facing,” President of the Texas Farmers Bureau, Russell Boening, said. “And there is one topic that is pretty much universal when you talk about issues facing farmers and ranchers and that's feral hogs.”
How has Texas tried to solve this dilemma? Governmental programs are trying to control the population. There are also business owners like Edward Dickey who own services to capture the feral hogs.
“The way the traps work is that they’re larger,” said Dickey. “They're made up of 12, eight-foot wide metal panels. But at the bottom of them, the holes are smaller so that the piglets can slip through.”
You mean for eradication? If so, yes.
***How does feral hog taste compared to domestic hog?***
Nasty! Here in the Ozarks feral hogs are shot and let lay as they are almost all infected with Psudorabies.
[The landowners will allow you to shoot the feral hogs, for a fee. When you pay a minimum of $50 to shoot a pig, you do not shoot very many of them.]
I have eaten wild pig which was shot in California, and in Texas. Both were delicious.
After you shoot one and see that their skin is literally crawling with ticks, flees and lice, I’m not eating that!
In Europe they hunt the Central European Boar. It crosses state boundaries. As a result, some of them wandered through Chernobyl and are slightly radioactive. People do eat them.
Sow are better than boar. Best to soak it in grapefruit juice.
The democrats are wild but they need to be culled....
Saw the sasme video. A number of the hunters were using AR’s to take them down and it often took more than 1 shot.
Like Florida with pythons, these feral hogs present a constant danger to agriculture, wild life, and the environment.
I was driving to my deer lease one night in the Hill Country NW of San Antonio going around a curve when a huge feral hog jumped across the road directly in front of my Mustang. The ridge of his back was higher than the hood of the car. I estimated his weight at 400 pounds. If I had hit it, my car would have been totaled.
Texas should put a mandatory bounty on these devils which would go partly to the landowners. TBH, the landowners should let hunters go after them for free, considering the damage they do.
How about a state wide BBQ with all the fixins for the National Guard and Border Patrol. Ya’ll come!
Here’s an idea of how Texas can contribute to the war on terrorism: initiate Operation Feral Cowboy: Park a transport plane at an area known for feral hogs. Lay a trail of corn into the transport plane; when it is full, close it up and fly Porky and friends to Israel. When it gets to Israel, offload Porky and friends and stampede them into the tunnels.
If nothing else this little exercise will make the Israelis laugh and that would drive the muzzies absolutely insane.
(I did not up with this; another poster did but it was so hilarious that I had to share it.)
“Open season, no limit.”
Texas has exactly this, open season, no limit no licence needed if on private land, and a bounty per tail turned into a whole slew of counties. We also have no restriction on means...which means we can a do use full automatic weapons, suppressors and hunt them from the air with those means it is worth every penny to be hanging off the side of a helicopter strapped in from behind with a FA AR10 drum mags and suppressed. They fly you over a sounder and you let rip with FA fire on them it’s an euphoric experience.
Even with all this the little critters breed and breed and breed three times per year from 6 months of age till the sow dies at up to 10 years old. Each litter can have up too 17 piglets you see how the R0 number climbs exponentially. The little ones are dang tasty we call the under 40# females Webber pigs because they fit on a Webber kettle smoker which is how they should be cooked. Whole splayed open Low slow over pecan oak or hickory.
Gee, that sure does sound like fun.
Gad, they’re worse than rabbits.
I’ve seen some ingenious traps for them, too, that can trap the whole sounder. What I’ve heard is that once the sounder is shot at, it breaks up and they go their separate ways and start new ones, so that it’s hard to keep up with them.
By corralling them, it prevents the piglets from getting away and that is supposed to be more effective in controlling them.
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