Is anyone in Canada making a coordinated, concentrated effort to get rid of them? Seems like before populations explode, this would be the time to get them - dont wait until there are 2.6 million hogs like texas has alone. Theoretically - at least one would think - they should be easier to trap in canada with a winter season where food can be scarce compared to the south where seasons are much kinder. Our state greatly curtailed hog hunting on most public ground with no plan in place after that. The public ground became hog breeding refuges and they spilled out - increasing the population of surrounding ground. That is what happened when I killed 153 hogs in six months off 62 acres that bordered some public ground where hog hunting had largely been curtailed - they flowed out in a never ending river of hogs. They stopped hunting on public - but werent prepared to do anything about the uncontrolled population explosion.
I think banning hunting is an effective tool in areas where pigs have not colonized all habitat - but control measures need to be put into place at the same time. I know folks who were killing as many hogs as I was. I cant imagine how many hogs there would have been if there werent a bunch of hunters killing 100’s of hogs a year on private ground as the hogs were breeding uncontrolled on public.
I am not much of a fan of coyotes - but they fed heavily on piglets. The sows might have six or eight pigs, but in eight weeks, they might only have three left. It was interesting when USDA removed the hogs, most of the coyotes disappeared after a year. We have very few rabbits or rats - there wasnt much left for a coyote to eat year round.
Got to admit, I do miss shooting them
