Posted on 12/23/2006 3:55:07 PM PST by Sybeck1
Fayette County officer kills 600-pound boar
Fayette County resident John Cocke walked out onto his deck, clapped his hands, and hollered.
He first thought a neighbor's hog was on the loose, but he quickly saw the animal ripping into his chicken coop had long tusks, beady eyes and hair that stood up on his back like an angry dog.
"He acted aggressive, like if you come out here, I'm going to tear you up."
Cocke called for help.
Fayette County Animal Control officer Thomas Petrowski felled the wild porker with three blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun. Cocke's nephew carved the beast into slabs of bacon and mounds of pork chops.
Fayette County folks have been talking about the ferocious hog that weighed 600-plus pounds and spanned 7 feet, snout to curly tail.
Feral hogs are once-domesticated animals that have returned to the wild. Sometimes hogs escape the pen, or people turn them out to forage, or they're stocked for hunting purposes.
Wild hogs have become increasingly common -- and a growing nuisance -- throughout the South, though the exact number in Tennessee is unclear, said Ben Layton, big-game biologist for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in Crossville.
Nationally, feral hogs are increasingly on the radar of state wildlife officials, who note their rapid rate of reproduction and their threat to game and wildlife.
"Feral hogs are very destructive creatures that can destroy native plants and natural resources," said Layton. "Our agency has taken a stand of trying to stop the uncontrolled introduction of these animals into the wild."
Cocke said he hadn't seen any wild hogs on his property before the one that was killed several weeks ago.
"He'd been up the road at a neighbor's house before he came down here. He'd broke in their horse barn or pasture and broke a gate down, and their horses got out. We live 1.5 or 2 miles (east of) Somerville and those horses were so scared they went to Somerville."
Animal Control officer Bill Crook ran the hog back into the woods, but the animal returned.
Then Petrowski arrived.
The hog had literally ripped a pole holding a trash feeder from the ground, he said.
Petrowski said hunters don't comprehend the danger of coming up on a wild hog in the dark.
"They are nothing to play with," he said. "Hunters should be aware in the woods."
-- Shirley Downing: 529-2387
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‘FOREIGN’ ANIMALS MOVING IN
A manatee swims up the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico. An Arkansas black bear crosses the Mississippi River and hikes across Northwest Tennessee. Dead armadillos line the roadside and alligators bask in McKellar Lake.
Details
Increasingly, Mid-Southerners see animals once foreign to the area. Reasons vary, but largely involve changes in clime and habitat, free-ranging animals and the return of domesticated animals to the wild.
"You can clump armadillos, alligators and fire ants together," said Gary Cook, regional manager for the Jackson office of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
"Some of those are temperature dependent. The warmer it is, the farther north they will expand their territories. Because we have had relatively warm temperatures for the past 10 years, those animals tend to expand their territories north.
"That's the reason you are seeing alligators in the Mississippi River and armadillos expanding northward."
Coyotes are "a totally different story. We've had coyotes for a long time, from about the mid-1970s."
The arrival of coyotes is due to natural range expansion, he said. "That has nothing to do with temperatures. All species expand their range when they can do so."
University of Memphis biology professor Mike Kennedy said coyotes are drawn to the Mid-South because "our habitat is good. We have abundant rabbit and rodent resources that are the primary food items for coyotes."
Copyright 2006, commercialappeal.com - Memphis, TN. All Rights Reserved.
All over the country people and agencies complain about wild pigs, but generally won't let us common folk hunt them or charge us when they do. The best pig hunting usually isn't on public land.
More like 600-pound bore.
LOL when I saw the headline I thought someone had shot Michael Moore.
What was the load on that 12 gauge? Three shots into 600 pounds wouldn't be at all certain if it were buckshot.
They probably just shot the University of Arkansas's mascot.
a .338 with a good fragmentation or expanding bullet ought to suffice nicely. Say, Lapua magnum.
On the other hand, there are guys that hunt them with knives:
http://www.a-wild-boar-hog-hunting-florida-guide-service.com/boar-hunting-12-18-06.htm
They also use spears.
I assume he used slugs or double aught buckshot.
HOGZILLA
What a blooming moron!
The fire ants came in on ships unloading cargo from South America...temperature had nothing to do with it. And it happened in the 50's or at least was noticed then...coulda' been earlier. They stay in their holes in cold weather just like the regular ants, but sub-freezing temps do not discourage them at all.
There were alligators in the Mississippi river back in the days of Mark Twain and who knows how long before that.
Armadillos have been slowly migrating this way for nearly a hundred years....they must have known Global Warming was coming way back then.
The "Warmist" religion requires that everything be blamed on climate change and all climate change must be blamed on humans....especially those evil capitalists.
I've got a solution. Round them up, cart them over to Iran and other troublesome muslim areas and dump 'em on the Jihadists.
Preferably into their homes and mosques.
It might be nice to drop a few from a C-17 over Mecca with "no visible means of support," but that would be insensitive to the poor dumb animals. The hogs, I mean.
Aim right between the eyes,sometimes they charge when wounded.
"You can clump armadillos, alligators and fire ants together"
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Sounds like a meal I had once in Louisiana.
There is no difference between the 45-70 and the 450 Marlin if you reload and have the right firearm. The factory 45-70's are downloaded in case they're chambered in something like an old trapdoor Springfield.
If you reload like I do, and have a modern firearm the ballistics can be exactly the same.
Ammo is important: I shot one in East Tennessee a few years back, a cross between a feral hog and a Russian boar.
Using a .44 mag,it took me three shots; I'd made the mistake of using jacketed 180-gr hollow-points, when I should have been using 240-gr solids, or cast lead semi-wadcutters.
The hollow-points just blew up on impact without penetrating.
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