Posted on 01/24/2010 6:30:19 PM PST by NCjim
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — National park biologists are trying to come to grips with a hog infestation in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In 2009, the park's hog team removed 620 wild hogs, the third highest since the hog control program started in the late 1950s. Biologists say the hog population spiked last year because of a bountiful mast crop that enabled the sows to produce more than one litter.
Park biologist Bill Stiver told the Knoxville News-Sentinel the introduction of wild, semi-domesticated hogs into the park has made hog control even more difficult.
"The speculation is that hunters are illegally releasing feral pigs that eventually make their way inside the park," Stiver said. "It's a major problem not just here, but all over North America."
He said numerous hogs killed this year had spotted markings and curly tails associated with domestic pigs.
"We're getting a handful of animals that morphologically look different from our traditional wild boar," Stiver said. "Some of them act different, too. Instead of running away, they let you walk up to them."
Hogs in the park date to the early 1920s, when a herd of European hogs escaped from a game reserve on Hooper's Bald in the mountains of Graham County, N.C. The wild hogs moved into the park by the 1940s and began to wreak havoc on the ecosystem by eating rare plants and salamanders, defecating in streams and turning up the ground.
Biologists believe the wild hogs that invaded the park already had crossed with free-ranging domestic pigs. Their appearance, however, retained the lean hips, large tusks, straight tails and black hair of their European ancestors.
Since hunting isn't allowed in the Smokies, the park employs a seasonal hog control team that keeps the population in check through hunting and trapping.
(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...
I think I found where your Pings went...
LOL! (yes, I lurked that thread) :^)
I live near the park.
To answer all your questions, these populations of European wild boars were established before the park was, when they were imported and kept on a hunting preserve nearby.
They have no predators to keep the populations in check, so the numbers have exploded. The hogs also move into the nearby Cherokee National Forest, where they can be hunted.
The U.S. Park Service has very few properties where hunting is allowed, and the Smokies doesn’t allow it. Therefore the USPS, which is always whining about needing more money, has to pay sharpshooters to thin these, when they could charge permit fees and let the public do it.
I think this biologist is WAY off base suggesting hunters are releasing domestic pigs to breed with these. There are not enough hunters to hunt these now, and they are plentiful in the Cumberland Plateau and public hunting areas all over the eastern part of Tennessee.
Therefore, boar hunting guide operations have increased (along with the hog population) up on the Cumberland Plateau. But still more needs to be done. These are being very destructive to the native flora and fawna in the Smokies, but political correctness will never allow the problem there to be solved.
People are made of meat.
I've heard this aptly labeled "weapons grade stupid".
Yeah. Happy hunting.
I live just off the Stones River now in Rutherford Co. and if one dares venture in my sight it is one dead animal.
If shot with a large enough gun, hogs can be spread - sometimes a few feet.
;-)
“My pig is prettier!”
Perhaps, but we spotted you putting lipstick on it.
;-)
We get it from my grandson. He traps them in large cages and has it processed so I doubt he would know any recipe, sorry.
They are on his ranch in east TX.
He says they are plentiful but very destructive to the land.
Its not even the ole Smokies anymore...the signs tell you it is the United Nations Biosphere G.S.M.
Be careful....
Same here in Arkansas. They do a lot of damage. A couple guys at work went on a hunt on a guys farm and got 43 in one morning.
I am not hunting boars with my AR, you go ahead. I will be taking alone something a little bigger.
Personally, I think we have a nation-wide pork problem.
Ok. So why isn’t hunting allowed in the Smokeys?
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