La. Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries conducted a USDA-WS aerial feral hog removal program on two La. wildlife management areas,Pearl River WMA,east of New Orleans and Sherburne WMA west of Baton Rouge,during the week of March 10,2014 to March 14,2014. LDWF contracted with USDA-WS for two days of aerial shooting for $550 an hour plus the salaries of the pilot and the shooter,figuring on two eight-hour work days,the total came to $8,800 plus the salaries of the crew. The one day at Pearl River WMA,March 10,produced a total of 21 hogs,while the one day,March 14,at Sherburne WMA produced a total of 33 feral hogs. This was after LDWF and USDA-WS had said that the aerial operation was capable of removing 300 feral hogs in a day. USDA-WS has conducted similar aerial feral hog removal programs along the La. Gulf coastal marshes on state and federal wildlife management areas and refuges,in similar contracts,but those results were not released to the press. Doing the math,that amounts to $170 per reported feral hog kill,not counting the salaries of the pilot and shooter. This was an experimental program to judge the effectiveness of the aerial shooting program,in an area that is not open marshland,as the other coastal hunts were. LDWF and USDA-WS have had a very cozy working relationship for many years here,in Louisiana, with USDA-WS doing many closed contract nuisance wildlife jobs for LDWF. But now,USDA-WS is starting to charge LDWF for the real,true costs of these nuisance jobs and LDWF is being forced to start developing new,creative schemes to get fur and feral hog trappers to do the nuisance work for free. They are offering certain exclusive privileges on La. WMA and refuges to trappers who will play ball with LDWF,along with certain restrictions that USDA-WS never had,when they did the same work. Money or the lack of it is starting to drive a wedge between these two old allies and LDWF is now doing what should have been done in the first place,managing wildlife using sound scientific facts and doing it with the resources,at hand,namely La. trappers and hunters,sadly,with the exclusion of costly USDA-WS closed contracts. Good Luck

I bet they could get a lot of shooters for free if they would only ask people if they want to shoot hogs from a helicopter. Heck, I'd pay them $50, bring a few boxes of 00, and my shotgun for an hour of fun.

Matt

There spending about a million in ny to do the same.
They are smart enough to call it surveying for them. To account for the fact that they weren't able to shoot any in two weeks

Clint and his crews will do it for a lot less $$ and bag 500% more

They need some "experienced" and equipped full time feral wild hog trappers. A good trapper does not work for free.

Hunters/shooters alone will never significantly reduce the numbers of hogs in those areas. Aerial gunning works well in fairly open areas, but not in thick or heavily wooded terrain.

Dave

Here are some folks that do it. I would think La. may be different than west Texas.

http://helihunter.com/

That looks like fun for sure but check out the cost on their website. $2500 per hour! I had to go back and read it twice to be sure I read that correctly.

Dave

This was going on before it was made publicly legal in TX, now it is rampant, many western states I've lived in there are folks flying and gunning their own lands or those of folks they get cash for. Typically this is like many things, rich folks with money to burn who can afford to pay that without thinking twice.

In relation to the original thread it always interests me what the states goals are for working on feral hogs. Do they want...

1) Hunting and trapping of hogs for public recreation

or

2) Eradication of feral hogs wherever possible

***

The answer generally correlates to who they hire and how they go about it. In this state we always shared information with anyone calling about hunting as to what public land areas had feral hogs. This was done through information sharing among public land agencies and our agency (WS).

Many eradication efforts can fall short due to funding, they can fall short due to land access and politics (ie. a block of landowners who won't allow feral hog removal, which serves as refugia).

Ultimately, in this day and age nobody wants to have their statistics outed for having a bad cost/benefit ratio, however things beyond anyones control do happen, just like anything we do in this private industry, there are factors on a landscape scale when talking large invasives like feral hogs that will hinder or stop your take very quickly.

I personally have witnessed in OR, TX and NM on operations how you can have every hog in the area coming to your pre-baited corral traps and just when you are ready to hit the switch and remove entire sounders, you end up with 1 or 2 hogs because a truckload of folks just came through and shot up the place (and typically removed 1-2 hogs out of 30-40 you had coming).

This isn't just an idea, this happens all the time. We always had trail cams helping monitor traps and they always were setup to catch passing vehicles as well as the hogs on camera.

Ultimately this leads to discussions with landowners to allow them to allow hunters whenever they'd like, but to not waste money and time by having traps set by agency staff and fouling it by overlapping with random hunting.

***

There are outfits who do feral hog trapping obviously and the number should be growing just based on the growth of feral hog numbers and the folks willing to pay to get rid of them.

Just thought it was worth stating that if the state agency hiring wants eradication, that takes a different amount of work than if they just want to remove X amount of hogs each year.

If you want to see a well coordinated outfit that is a private outfit that does major contracts around the world, check these folks out. They have the only proven 100% eradication of feral hogs documented thus far.... Here is the pub. The cost was extremely high, fences were built ahead of time to split the island that wasn't part of the cost they charged but paid for by TNC and they used all tactics and coordination they can among their people from flying to dogs and telemetry. They are the gold standard, but most states can't afford to hire them.

http://nativerange.com/

(formerly "pro hunt")

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320709004935

As a govt. employee I always used these folks and what they did as an educational tool to explain how you utilize all methods available and coordinate them to remove hogs as efficiently and as quickly as possible.

***

A side note, these folks bid the contract ahead of time, so the amount they bid was the amount they received whether it took 5 years or whether it took 3, if they finished in 3 obviously they made more money and if it took 5 not so much.....

***

There will be plenty of opportunity for folks to go after feral hogs in the private industry, my only suggestion is that those who are going to attempt large landscape scale reduction realize that politics and landownership is usually 75% of the nightmare, the hogs themselves which can be plenty tricky and of course reproduce like mice are only about 25% of the actual problem.

There are some great papers published from eradications that have been attempted and the one I linked is just one of them, worth looking at all the massive amounts of literature especially what is published out of Australia and New Zealand, they've had feral hogs longer than we have and are an authority on much of the technique used to remove them.

We may be continents away from them geographically, but Sus scrofa is still the feral hog or feral pig underneath it all and the problems are the same in all places.

Folks keep moving hogs because they like to hunt them, widespread eradication takes massive effort and funding and coordination and the hogs keep reproducing while we all argue about who is better at getting it done...

Good luck!

Make LA an earn a buck state before you shoot a deer you gotta take a hog

Justin, you missed Wisconsin's state goal which is enough spanferkel for everyone!

Spanferkel is the German word for pig roast, I'm guessing, and we take our pig roasts very seriously.

The town P.J. lives in has an entire weekend devoted to pig roasts. ( And perhaps some German beer to wash it down )

I've mentioned this before but I don't believe either wild or domestic pigs last very long in Wisconsin.

When asked about the number of wild pigs in Wisconsin, the DNR game manager said that we have three. I am not making this up.

That is a new word for me Paul! I like it!

**

I have heard the statement before and I hold it in high regard, that you can't barbecue your way out of a feral hog problem!

Now, I think you'd have to admit being I'm sure well traveled to the southern half of the U.S.A. that the folks in the states with the most
feral hogs probably find a new way to cook pork on a daily if not hourly basis!

I've been fortunate to consume pork both wild and farm raised in TX, GA, FL, AL, NM and a number of others in my travels. One thing remains
constant, feral hogs keep proliferating.

As an advocate of feral hog eradication who truly believes we've yet to understand their true impacts and damage to many other species and to the ecology of our country as a whole, I would love to believe any state or country for that matter is immune to their potential spread and devastation.

However, factually, that place hasn't been created yet within any climate outside of Antarctica or the Arctic. Whether true eurasian / Russian stock or simple farm hogs left out too long a pig/hog is an animal with coyote like intelligence and wariness and the ability to reproduce like a norway rat!

There isn't a place in the lower 48 we won't see them exist in numbers in the next decade. If you look at the spread thus far, they far outreach what folks once thought they were capable of. In Europe where eurasian boar exist natively, even they have started to exceed their northern push utilizing farm fields and croplands to sustain them through long winters.

**

Now I love pork so I'm all for folks getting after it in the belief they will hunt their way and eat their way out of it, but it ain't gonna happen.



However, I will say that the more the public understands the problem they bring the more your average hunter who likes hunting native species will start to push against his buddy or her buddy moving a bunch into a field and dropping them off after a short trailer ride from a nearby state or game farm.

Only through folks stemming the tide of illegal and legal movement of hogs will there be even a remote chance of keeping them down or eradicating them.

***

On a side note, I've heard all manner of things folks have believed would stem the tide. I can't tell you how many folks have the delusion that native predators will clean them up! Feral hogs/pigs tend to carry a fair amount of things like pseudorabies which can drop a native predator within 24 hours of consumption, along with being a killer of livestock when they contract it!

Many states have very high native predator numbers (mtn. lion, bear, coyote, bobcat, wolf) and still these don't check feral hogs. As I'm sure you know and we've discussed before, the tenacity of a sow with piglets is second only to a few critters I can think of! Much easier meal to kill a fawn or other unarmed species, versus face old ma sow with her cutters!

Love the feral hog topic, it will be here longer than I will be and many generations thereafter.

Now, gonna go make a pork sandwich!

Lol!

Justin

As someone who actually prefers lamb and veal to your normal pork offerings, I must say that whenever I get anywhere within smelling distance of a pig roast, I become somewhat of drooler. Get outta my way!

I learned about those big old lactating sows very quickly. My dad had a small shed for whelping sows and I jumped over a pretty good sized fence because I wanted to look at the piglets. ( And of course, play with one of them ) When the piglet squealed and that 1 ton sow came after me, I probably set a new world record clearing that fence from the inside.

It is truly amazing the stuff you forget when you get older, but even more amazing is the stuff that you remember!

We have hogs!

I know from first hand experience that those Florida hogs taste mighty good also. What kind of bait did you use to get that one to jump up and grab the scale hook?

Worms. :-)

Some nice shots Dave!!

Closed contracts and political problems with wildlife services right in the middle, doing a poor job with our tax dollars. Why is this allowed to happen? Is it because ws comes with a big federal rubber stamp? Or is it that they use dirty politics and a proclaimed reduced cost for the supposed service? I find it interesting that ws is having to charge more for their services... Fortunately, this means they are competing with me and other private WCOs, on prices anyway. Now if we could just make the legislation fair, ws would perish!

From the pictures in this post it appears to me that there are people able and willing to remove the hogs using a variety of methods and technology, while providing a decent food source to themselves. This is the method I prefer and it could allow my tax dollars to be used elsewhere, like perhaps paying off the national dept. (not to mention the larger tax base with the employment opportunities hiring private WCOs would create)

So much for saving our country's ecosystems from this invasive specie when we can't even stop wasteful government actions. Our money (or social and economic value system) is wasted by our own government proclaiming (and failing) to protect our environment. Results; economic collapse and ecological degradation.

If you abolish WS, won't you unleash several hundred former WS specialists that will no longer have to abide by no-compete rules and go into business and compete with you for ALL of your work?

Yes, but Justin excepted, most guvment employees make terrible business folk. I got a brother that couldn't hold down a job for more than six months at a time, took him four and half years to get his two years on the job to sit for his PE exam. He's happy as a clam as a GS12 and has held that job for six years now.

Warrior, while you make a great point about most folks are not business minded, it only take one to start the company and hire employees! When WS folds why wouldn't the right person hand pick his or her new employees, especially if they had a prior working relationship, that's just good business.

And just think, most of those employees are already strategically place in any state to allow for service areas with a ready made customer base!

See you in the private sector some day!

that's a new type of limbline!

***Update*** The La. Wildlife Commission approved the use of aerial gunning for feral hogs,in Louisiana,at its monthly meeting,yesterday,in Baton Rouge. The regulations for aerial hunting will mimic those now in place,in Texas,established by Texas Parks and Wildlife,in the last few years. The final regulations are to be finalized and put into place by LDWF,according to Robert Barham,Secretary of LDWF. The Vertex Aviation Group,from Houston,Texas (Google for info),was mentioned as a contact for information on feral hog aerial hunting,since they are now involved in this business,there. In recent legislative action on the feral hog problem in La.,the La. House of Representatives passed out of committee and onto the open floor for discussion,a bill to allow the night hunting of feral hogs 365 days a year,with night vision scopes and silencers on private property,it is now closed from September first to March first,during the open deer seasons. It is estimated that the feral hog population,in La. is over 500,000 and growing rapidly,with damage estimates in the millions of dollars. Good Luck

I need to ask some dumb questions here because I don't know any better. If we had a half a million wild hogs running around Wisconsin, I would expect that our governor would have a picture of Porky in every post office!

When you have that many animals doing damage, I'm guessing that you want all the help you can get,right? Are these not edible animals since they don't seem to held in as high esteem as Wisconsin does.

Since we feed a lot of whitetail deer to the indigent, I guess I'm wondering why wild pigs, which are better for you than domestic hogs, aren't treated the same way?

You have hogs in NY?

Paul,

We used to be able to donate feral hog meat to local folks. That changed when someone termed them not wildlife, not escaped domestic therefore exotic.

For my program that was the end of donating, they had to be disposed of through other means.

Most states are struggling with whether to add regulations or what to do. Many simply state you can't import them, release them, etc....

MO did a sting operation back in the mid 2000's and found most illegal releases and hunts were on public land usfs, etc.....

Hogs are something many want but no one wants responsibility. Usually the state game agency would prefer the ag board folks take on the issue, while in other states the game agency leads the way.

Still others have gone from allowing open harvest to charging for tags!

Great way to try to eradicate your problem there! Limit harvest.

California many years ago allowed a party tag take as many as you'd like, up to 20 per tag I believe.

Years ago they dropped it down to one tag one hog, though I knew guys who were told by wardens to take as many as you could!

-------

To the next post, yup hogs are in NY as well.

the problem with hogs on wma in louisiana is caused by dwl@f regulations. they only allow hogs to be hunted as incidental game in other seasons. for example in squirrel season a hog can only be hunted with a 22 rim fire or a shot gun with bb shot or smaller. not ideal to kill a hog. you can hunt them with a bow during deer bow season but this isnt ideal , it hard to stalk close enough and you cant bait on a wma. so you really have about (20 days with rifle 7 day with a muzzelloder ) you can use a weapon really capable to do the job but the hogs go nocturnal from the hoards of people in the wood trying to kill deer. a lot of folks dont shoot them because they want to kill a deer. if the wildlife and fishery really wanted to cut down on the hogs the could easily do so by letting the citizens who buy hunting license hunt them in a manner that would allow success, as in appropriate weapon such as buckshot or a rifle . heck if they allowed hog dog hunting you wouldnt need anything but a knife. this make too much sense and it dosnt make somones brother in law wealthy who owns a texas helicopter hog hunting service. whoever had this wonderful idea to hire a texas helicopter crew to charge outrageous prices for little results to the tax payers of louisiana and kill hogs and let them rot. should be fired . this is nothing but incompetence. they should make a hog season and allow weapons appropriate to kill a hog with and the public will be glad to solve the problem. if they are really serious open it up to hog dogers just make a regulation were the hog must be killed when caught. problem solved and the state could profit from more license sales. believe it or not the wildlife and fisheries of Louisianan ,the commission that manages the agency voted unanimously Thursday to consider expanding the program to private lands.pushed by Mike Morgan, who represents a company named Vertex Tactical Aviation that takes hunters on helicopter hog shoots over private land in Texas. the dept of wildlife and fisheries claim hunter are not doing a good enough job on wma . they say hunting season is 6 months long. but its hard to kill a hog with a 22 rim fire or a bow or a shotgun with 6 shot ,be real, their regulations are not conducive for hunters to be successful hog hunting. i say follow the money , who is this guy related to that a state agency would allow this. wanton wast of game is against the law in louisiana and the state is paying people from another state an outrageous amount of money to do it.when all they have to do is let the citizen hunt them year round with adequate weapons for the job.
SHERBURN deer season ................wonder why there are over run with hogs
Deer
Archery (bucks only):
Oct. 1-15
Deer
Archery (either-sex):
Oct. 16 - Feb. 15Deer
Youth and Physically Challenged (either-sex):
Oct. 26-27.
ALL OTHER
SEASONS CLOSED
. Self-clearing permits.

Deer
Youth
Lottery (either-sex):
Oct. 26-27, Dec. 23 & 28, and Jan. 3 & 12. Contact
Opelousas Field Office (337-948-0255) for more details and applications.
Deer
Firearms (either-sex):
Nov. 29-30, mandatory deer check. Dec. 1, self-clearing.
Dec. 6-8, mandatory deer check.
Deer
Firearms (bucks only):
Dec. 28 - Jan. 12
Deer Primitive
Firearms (either-sex):
Jan. 13-19

louisiana has good regulations on hog hunting on private land the hog problem is were they the state protect them on wma trough there restrictive and not very well thought out regulations that prohibit successful hog hunting and this spills over on private land adjacent to wma because the wma are basically sanctuary were the hogs are protected from all hunters except texas helicopter Vertex Tactical Aviation seems something is very wrong here. i say follow the money

Chickenwing, I do agree with you about the regs themselves not helping the situation. We have an open season on hogs in NM all year round, as do many other states, though this hasn't fixed anyones problem. I know "hog doggers" who literally hunt every of the year they are able to physically and all their buddies do too, plus there are trappers and other hunters and still the hog population grows.

This problem won't be hunted out without a coordinated effort. Can that effort involve hunters, trappers and others along with private companies and G&F agencies and others, yup, but it ain't gonna happen without that coordination, ever...

Hogs were once in just a few states, now the small amount of states are those who haven't been hit yet with them...

Anyone who hasn't seen the SCWDS maps should reference them here to see the sprawl... These are based on surveys sent out during these years reported to state wildlife agencies and having them report back as to where hogs existed in their state/county, etc.... Now they have a live map and it is updated more often by many contributors...

http://vet.uga.edu/scwds/range-maps

Go down the page and you'll see feral swine maps from various years, it moved so fast now they have a live map to address the quickness of the spread.

Feral swine are a plague, however people and politics will always thwart ever getting rid of them completely unless the land mass is entirely private and preferably and island.

I've got a stack of literature from around the globe where trapping, hunting, judas operations and poisoning have been attempted and all those places but a few islands still have their hogs...

Open seasons help, better allowance of take on state and federal lands helps so we don't have refuges where they can breed, but ultimately any of these will fail to deliver eradication without all parties involved and committed.

Folks who hunt for meat and recreation do not have to fret if there are some remaining hogs after an operation, they aren't in it for that reason. They can be part of the solution, but at the end of the day they can go home and no one can hold anything over their heads the way you can with a private contractor, whether a NWCO or a govt. agency who has to face public scrutiny...

Because the feral wild hogs do so much damage to the environment, landscape, roots up and destroys roads and pastures, increases costs for land owners/managers, destroys ground nesting bird nests, can/will kill and eat new born calves and fawns, competes with native game animals and birds for the prime wild food sources, etc., some states are easing the restrictions and are now encouraging the take and removal of feral wild hogs by any legal means. Florida is one such state that now has very liberal laws regarding the hunting of the hogs. They have recently approved the use of a gun and light at night for the purpose of taking hogs on private property.

Many of Florida's state owned lands now have regulated "hog dog" hunts, usually a three day weekend dog hunt or week long dog hunt. These hunts are for the sole purpose of reducing or totally eliminating the feral hog populations on state lands. The managers of such state lands tell me they like the hog dog hunts because the total kill in a single hog dog hunt exceeds by wide margin the total yearly kill of hogs by season long gun and bow hunters combined. Most hog dog hunters do not use a gun, only a knife blade to the heart to dispatch the dog caught hogs.

Private land hog hunting and trapping is wide open. Because the feral hog is not considered to be a state game animal and is not regulated, you can take as many hogs as you want, take them at any time, with about any means possible. Poison (1080) is not yet approved but is being trialed and may be eventually authorized for use by government agents.

In Fla the feral wild hog is considered to be the #2 big game animal because so many hunters like hunting them, the fact that they are abundant in many areas, and they can be hunted all year long in many areas. This gives the typical deer or small game hunter something to hunt during the off season. The hog dog hunters are a different breed of hunter in that their challenge and desire is usually to catch the hog alive. That is quite an exciting event when the quarry is a big fire breathing boar hog with big razor sharp dog killing tusks. Many of the live dog caught or trapped hogs seem to get relocated to and released in new areas to expand the hog hunting opportunities there. That relocation of a feral hog is illegal in many states, but it does occur and is probably partially responsible for the quick spread of feral hogs across the country.

If they can eliminate feral hogs on state lands successfully, is there a chance they could take their act to Washington D.C. and do the same on Federal lands?

I work in the marshes of Southwest Louisiana. Every once in a while, we can't go out into Sabine NWR for 2-3 days, because aerial gunners are going to be there, doing what they can to the pigs. I do not know who they are, or where they are from. I do know that they shoot quite a few each time, probably between 100-200. I am not sure, I am not the one doing the shooting, but I do ask around, and that's the numbers that I am usually told. When I see someone that may come into contact with the pig control people, I give them GPS coordinates for places that I have seen pigs after a 2-3 day sweep.

I do see pigs that have been left where they fell. This is how I feel about it: Pigs have to be stopped. That's almost impossible, but they can at least be set back. I do not want any animal to suffer, and I do not want any animal to be wasted. However, I do believe that when it comes to pigs, in my opinion, the most important thing is that the highest number of pigs than can be shot, be shot. In our marshes, getting out there to pick up pigs that have been shot by aerial gunners just isn't going to happen most of the time, unless you have an airboat. If the pig doesn't fall on a road, chances are that you just can't get to most of them. Like I said, I hate for animals to be wasted, but I agree 100% with shooting as many as possible, and retrieving the pigs are on the bottom of my list of concerns...not to mention they've been running like crazy and probably taste like mud anyway. Pigs do a lot of damage to our coast. They tear up the soil, and that leads to sediment being washed away. Our coast is in a pickle, and pigs just aren't helping out.

When it comes to WMAs and regulations, I just don't understand the 22 rimfire regulations that people have mentioned. I feel as though they should be encouraging people to get as many as possible, and that's hard to do with a 22 LR. Just my 2 cents, they're definitely a problem.

I just have one question about feral hogs that sticks in my mind. What is the economic incentive for someone from Texas to truck a bunch of wild pigs up to Wisconsin and illegally let them go? ( Okay, he beat the rap in court and I know we're a blue state, but as a red voter, I still want to follow the money )

Not always money Paul. Folks love to hunt hogs, if they have to drive to TX from WI to do so, why not just bring them closer to home?

Last I remember this would be a few years back there were several cases like this in upper Midwest states including WI, MI and MN.

Sometimes these cases don't make the news, but we had program folks assisting dept of ag in those states with disease sampling when they caught trailers full of them, or a fenced property trying to import without a permit.

Usually the case is that I live in X state and I've got a buddy in a feral hog loaded state and I want some.

When I was in Oregon there was an exotic ranch in central Oregon that had a rickety old wire fence about knee high and they had every critter known to man imported and released there. Exotic sheep, elk, hogs, deer. All of these would escape, ODFW and ODA would sue them and they would change their name and keep selling hunts and importing exotics.

Some do it to sell exotic hunts, many do it just to have them lose to home to hunt.

Both are causing the spread...

People can disagree with me on this if they want to, but I won't change my stance. Pigs should not be released, anywhere other than a maximum security type fenced in area, for any reason. They are going to be planting a seed that won't be stopped. Anyone caught releasing pigs should be harshly punished. The population is going to get out of control, then...they're going to spread to someone else's property.

I will never forget something I read in a newspaper one day. It was an article written by someone that is supposed to really be in the know when it comes to pigs, I believe he has a PhD. He said "The 2 questions that I am asked the most are 1) How do I get pigs on my property? and 2) How do I get pigs off of my property. The answer to the first question is to just release some. The answer to the second one is, well, Good Luck."

"The 2 questions that I am asked the most are 1) How do I get pigs on my property? and 2) How do I get pigs off of my property. The answer to the first question is to just release some. The answer to the second one is, well, Good Luck."

Aix, this one is similar to other fine statements that I love about hogs (and I agree with your stance on hogs 100%).

1.) There are two types of landowners, those who have feral hogs and those who will soon.

2.) Feral hog sows have 8 in a litter and 10 survive! (that one is a classic)

3.) Feral hogs are a 4 legged fire ant...

4.) You can't barbecue your way out of a feral hog problem.

There is a short list of folks do the bulk of published literature and articles on hogs. Mayer, Higginbotham, Campbell to name a few. All know their subject matter. Some great resources in other countries as well, I used to exchange with govt. researchers in New Zealand and Australia, who have some program differences and techniques that applied to arid lands like I live in now and eradication efforts.

Some of the new bait trials going on in conjunction with USDA/WS/NWRC and Australian researchers are aimed at finding an acceptable toxicant for hogs, currently the work is focused on nitrate based baits since 1080 and others have been pushed to the brink by environmental concerns.

The biggest problem we face here in the states is that we don't just have feral animals we are trying to eradicate, we have lots of native carnivores that will take these baits. The focus at present is on delivery mechanisms to allow hogs to root into baited locations and take the toxicant, without bear, raccoon, and various other wildlife species to access it.

For reference, in Australia they are able to use 1080 bait in kangaroo meat dispatched on a transect from a helicopter and still the hogs expand, though they can have a major impact in this way, however the non target wildlife like red fox and others are non native invasives.....

Feral hogs are frankly job security for anyone interested in developing a serious company, a serious high end professional company with all the tools and complements such as a native range type that I listed earlier, can find abundant work, even with govt. agencies doing this type of work.

Justin

I have had both cold and warm weather domestic hog barbecued and I've also had both cold and warm weather feral hog barbecued. I hardly noticed any difference in either case. ( Except that at the Florida barbecue I was with some folks for the first time and I couldn't get barbecue sauce from stem to stern like I usually do )

My question is: Have any of you guys done the domestic vrs. feral barbecue thing, and if so what were your feelings?

P.S. I was never much of a pork fan until I had my first barbecue. Those things should be illegal for people my age!

Paul, I like the feral hog chops more, but the roast, I did not care for versus a domestic...

Of course the chops I had came from a feral in a part of TX where there were corn filled deer feeders
around 1-3 per acre!

So technically other than not being "kept" that hog was sure corn fed!

Years ago we taught my brother in law to corral trap and snare hogs on some land he had access to, he paid for the
processing, and brought it up to us in ABQ in a cooler, which was not just good tasting hogs but free hog!

Or free pork if you want to keep a govt. context!

.....and just imagine how fast pigs would spread if even just a few people took job security into their own hands and released pigs here and there. In my opinion, the only good pig outside of a feedlot or barn is a dead pig. Period. There should be serious penalties for those who are caught spreading them. I don't care if someone's land is the size of Kisatchie National Forest or the King Ranch....they don't have enough land to keep the plague from spreading to neighbors. They may think that what I'm saying is a bit overboard. I'd disagree, and I'd tell them until they know what it's like to lose thousands of their own dollars a year or someone close to them's money in crop damage caused by pigs, they may not understand it. It comes down to they can not be contained--they will eventually spread. Until the penalty makes someone stop and say "Wow, that's stiff. I can't risk that kind of punishment." then people will continue to release pigs. "Well, look at it this way, you can hunt them!" Yeah, I can hunt them, but I can't stop them. It blows my mind that some people actually release pigs!

Seems like I recently read something about some kind of salt being a possibility for getting rid of pigs...I'll have to see if I can't find some article about that somewhere.......

The salt is nitrate. Ironically the same nitrate used in curing pork.

Aix,

I agree! However very few states, Kansas comes to mind, have heavy fines. Believe they were a leader in it at $10k per offense.

The toxicant bait is sodium nitrite, meat preservative.

In high doses is highly effective.

Look up "hog gone."

That's the stuff! I remember that the article said it was the same thing used for curing bacon.


Last October, we ran down some in a marsh using an airboat near the La/Tx border. Only thing available at the time was a ball pein, but 2 pigs won't be parenting this year

A while back I remember reading where a couple of guys were arrested for poisoning hogs on their land. Don't remember where, but it may have been in Georgia. Whatever they were using must have been effective.

Dave

More La. and general feral wild hog info here.....

http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/sites/defau..._3_14_kr_bb.pdf

Dave

Davexx1, I would guess that this is the most thorough report on feral hogs that I have read to date. Thanks for posting. The one sentence that will probably stay in my mind forever is: "Farmers observed feral hog boars breeding bedded cows". Had this happened on our farm when I was a kid, I could be more mentally scarred than I am now.

http://www.louisianasportsman.com/details.php?id=6465
looks like the wildlife and fisheries restricting citizens to hut hogs om wma with weapons adequate to kill hogs but are possibly going to allow vertex aviation group a texas helicopter company to sell helicopter hunts over state wma
somebody is getting paid off got to be. restricting citizens to hunt hogs on wma but allowing a out of state company to sell hunt on state lands? their own regulation prohibit paid guides on state land i guess a little cash to the right person and law dont apply to you.

When I was in Texas about a week ago the guys were telling me that they try to get the land all in a block. If a landowner says no and is left out, their land serves as a sanctuary. The running hogs go where there are not Helicopters.

So land around the WMA's may become the sanctuary driving hogs to private property or if the state allowed helicopters but not on state wma's the wma's would become the sanctuary.

for all those who were missing Pesky...

PW

The breeding bedded cow thing reminds me of an old photo I have somewhere where three big boars were mounted up taking turns "servicing" each other. They were mounted in a line then the front hog would move around to the rear of the line and mount the last hog. I could see the bombs and rockets were definitely going off, eyes crossed, etc.. Have seen boars mount another boar several times. Makes me wonder if the gays and lesbians.... ur uh, I better not go there. Not sure i want to eat another pork chop.

Dave

Dave Schmidt,you have no idea how close to the truth Chickenwing really is,since you have never had the opportunity to deal with the elitest,entitlement mentalities and attitudes exhibited by the higher-up career bureaucrats that now are in charge at LDWF. Good Luck

You're right; I haven't. But the bureaucrats can probably write a coherent sentence.