Texas Losing The Feral Hog Fight

[Trigger Time]

I have no issues with exterminating these invasive species by any means necessary. These pigs eat deer, birds, rabbits, crops, grass, dogs, people, anything. Hundreds of millions in damage.
I'm the first one to stand up for sanctity of hunting and respecting the life & death of the animals we hunt but when it comes to wild hogs, nukem from orbit!

 

[AtTheMurph]

All the feral xxxxx fights are lost before they begin. Once released into the habitat and breeding starts, it's over.

 

[two70]

I think you missed the point. The issue isn't what you mention below, but rather those land owners who clutch their pearls and whine about their hog problem and THEN try to charge people for the privilege of helping them solve the problem. Either it's a problem and you will deal with (or ask for help), or it's a resource and you capitalize on it with a business. To beg for help and then ask to be paid . . . that's bad form.

I didn't miss that point, I addressed it with my third point. People including you are assuming that the ones charging to hunt pigs are the same ones begging for help, that's not always or even usually the case. I'm sure there are plenty of landowners that would love to be able to eliminate hogs but since that is not likely, settle for selling a few hunts to make living with them a little more bearable, both by supplementing income and reducing populations. Others are only interested in selling hunts not in eliminating the hogs. The ones "begging for help" are typically those that are primarily farmers, not hunters, and pay for far more effective means than hunting to control hog numbers.

 

[two70]

Something to understand about Texas game laws; regs are written to enrich the land owners and keep control of the peasantry. If you want to charge thousands to shoot specially bred and nourished tame muy grandes then regs are your friend. If you want a plate of squirrel and dumplings then you're the problem.

Texas game laws are written to give landowners more control of their own land and the game that resides on it. What a novel concept! Everyone is all for landowners rights right up until they don't get to do whatever they want on other people's property for quite as cheap as they think they should.

 

[Rookie]

I didn't miss that point, I addressed it with my third point. People including you are assuming that the ones charging to hunt pigs are the same ones begging for help, that's not always or even usually the case. I'm sure there are plenty of landowners that would love to be able to eliminate hogs but since that is not likely, settle for selling a few hunts to make living with them a little more bearable, both by supplementing income and reducing populations. Others are only interested in selling hunts not in eliminating the hogs. The ones "begging for help" are typically those that are primarily farmers, not hunters, and pay for far more effective means than hunting to control hog numbers.

From the link that I provided...

Texas is overrun with wild hogs! Feral hogs are devastating our farms, forests & wildlife habitats, causing millions in damages every year! These pigs reproduce every 115 days with up to 12 in a litter. It's enough to make anyone -- even a vegan -- want to grab a rifle and shoot one.

Seems like they are trying to make it sound like an issue to them. Oh, by the way, spend big bucks to help!

 

[KJQ6945]

From the link that I provided...

Texas is overrun with wild hogs! Feral hogs are devastating our farms, forests & wildlife habitats, causing millions in damages every year! These pigs reproduce every 115 days with up to 12 in a litter. It's enough to make anyone -- even a vegan -- want to grab a rifle and shoot one.

Seems like they are trying to make it sound like an issue to them. Oh, by the way, spend big bucks to help!

You and I have discussed this at length. Not every one understands what is going on.

For the others, search for a place that will let you shoot unlimited hogs, with something other than a bolt action. They are few and far between until you talk to actual ranchers, that don't have websites.

Guides that come up in a google search, have exclusive rights to plenty of different ranches. The helicopter hunts have exclusive rights to thousands upon thousands of acres. Most of the "hunting ranches", are trapping hogs in other areas that they have exclusive access to. They will let you go out and shoot one, for the price of your vacation, then charge you by the pound if you shoot a second one. The guides manage it like a deer hunt, because it is their livelihood.

It would not surprise me to find out that a lot of the guides are getting paid on the front end, by the ranchers, and on the back end by the hunters. There is money to be made, and people are capitalizing on it.

 

[Hohn]

I wonder if there is a paradox, or at least some conflicting interests. Hog hunting is big business for a lot of people here. People put out bait...i.e. food... for them, and depend on them coming back to their properties so hunting leases and trips can be sold. It's not exactly in their interest to remove all the hogs.

Its called the Cobra effect. India put a bounty on cobras hoping to incentivize people to eradicate them.

Instead, people began to farm them as it was too profitable to let go.


A similar dynamic is likely at work now.

Eliminating hogs is easy if you don’t mind mountain lions and other animals that prey upon them.

 

[phylodog]

Texas game laws are written to give landowners more control of their own land and the game that resides on it. What a novel concept! Everyone is all for landowners rights right up until they don't get to do whatever they want on other people's property for quite as cheap as they think they should.

I'm 100% in favor of landowner's rights and while your version may be true today, the story I relayed earlier was repeated many, many times in my presence. Complaining about the hogs as if their livelihood was in jeopardy but unwilling to accept free assistance. I was then and am still now a bowhunter so there were no concerns of me sending rounds into their homes.

I pay to lease hunting ground and don't begrudge the landowner one bit for charging me for the privilege. It allows us to hunt without having to put up with morons and our exclusive access increases our enjoyment ten fold. You're trying to make everyone else out to be bad people for finding it peculiar that those who act as if they need help refuse to accept it. I'd pay to hunt feral hogs if I had any desire to eat them, I don't. I fully realize, having seen it many times up close, the damage hogs do to property. They are in the same category as coyotes and only slightly more useful. They both lay where I kill them but at least a dead hog on the ground serves to act as bait for coyotes.

 

[Rookie]

I ran into a similar situation last fall. My dad hunts deer in Ohio at a place that charges big money for trophy bucks. Since my dad has zero interest in bucks, the owner charges him $100 to harvest doe. Anyway, my dad knows that I enjoy hunting coyotes and he mentioned it to the owner. The owner immediately started moaning about how coyotes are such a big problem for him, and my dad mentioned that I'd probably be willing to hunt them in the off season. The owner said that would be such a big help for him and he would only charge me $400 for the weekend. Yeah. **** that.

 

[Rookie]

As far as hog hunting, I'd be willing to pay $400 to hunt for a weekend if there wasn't a bag limit.

 

[rhino]

I'm 100% in favor of landowner's rights and while your version may be true today, the story I relayed earlier was repeated many, many times in my presence. Complaining about the hogs as if their livelihood was in jeopardy but unwilling to accept free assistance. I was then and am still now a bowhunter so there were no concerns of me sending rounds into their homes.

I pay to lease hunting ground and don't begrudge the landowner one bit for charging me for the privilege. It allows us to hunt without having to put up with morons and our exclusive access increases our enjoyment ten fold. You're trying to make everyone else out to be bad people for finding it peculiar that those who act as if they need help refuse to accept it. I'd pay to hunt feral hogs if I had any desire to eat them, I don't. I fully realize, having seen it many times up close, the damage hogs do to property. They are in the same category as coyotes and only slightly more useful. They both lay where I kill them but at least a dead hog on the ground serves to act as bait for coyotes.

If you can bag a hog that escaped from a farm maybe three weeks ago, it's probably pretty good eatin'. Heh!

 

[Route 45]

Here's an option for people who want to hunt hogs and were too young for Vietnam.

[video=youtube;F699DW1ZhLs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F699DW1ZhLs[/video]

 

[two70]

From the link that I provided...

Texas is overrun with wild hogs! Feral hogs are devastating our farms, forests & wildlife habitats, causing millions in damages every year! These pigs reproduce every 115 days with up to 12 in a litter. It's enough to make anyone -- even a vegan -- want to grab a rifle and shoot one.

Seems like they are trying to make it sound like an issue to them. Oh, by the way, spend big bucks to help!

I must have missed the part where the article had multiple direct quotes from hog hunting outfitters begging for help.

I'm 100% in favor of landowner's rights and while your version may be true today, the story I relayed earlier was repeated many, many times in my presence. Complaining about the hogs as if their livelihood was in jeopardy but unwilling to accept free assistance. I was then and am still now a bowhunter so there were no concerns of me sending rounds into their homes.

I pay to lease hunting ground and don't begrudge the landowner one bit for charging me for the privilege. It allows us to hunt without having to put up with morons and our exclusive access increases our enjoyment ten fold. You're trying to make everyone else out to be bad people for finding it peculiar that those who act as if they need help refuse to accept it. I'd pay to hunt feral hogs if I had any desire to eat them, I don't. I fully realize, having seen it many times up close, the damage hogs do to property. They are in the same category as coyotes and only slightly more useful. They both lay where I kill them but at least a dead hog on the ground serves to act as bait for coyotes.

I have a major problem with entitlement and the comments of many people in this thread (and many hunters in general) frequently tread the line of entitlement. Like it or not, nuisance and destructive as they may be, they have a value to landowners and hunters both. As does the time, effort and accommodations provided by the landowner. Now the value set by some landowners may be higher than some/many hunters want to pay but there are also plenty of cheaper operations to be found with a little effort. Painting all landowners/hog hunting operations with the same broad brush is nether accurate or fair.

I'll use an example that we can all relate to a little bit better. Say INGO member A has a sudden change in his life and can longer feed and properly maintain all of his firearms. He needs to reduce the inventory a bit and asks for help by listing several items in the classifieds here. Most other reasonable members expect to get a good deal on those firearms, maybe a little better if INGO member A is in a hurry to sell but they don't expect to get them for free or next to nothing even though they are helping A out. Those firearms have value. So do the pigs even though they are destructive.

BTW, there is nothing wrong with meat from feral hogs provided it is from young hogs or sows. It may be a little bit tougher and will certainly have less fat but it tastes the same as domestic pork.

 

[phylodog]

No entitlement here, like I mentioned I don't mind paying for the privilege of hunting species I want to hunt. I like killing coyotes but I won't pay to do it, if I were speaking with a sheep farmer who was having problems with coyotes killing his sheep I would offer to help. Asking for me to pay for the privilege just doesn't sit right with me.

That is very different from someone who owns land, has a ton of coyotes, knows people will pay to kill them and charging people. I have no issue with that whatsoever. Perhaps it's all in how things are worded.

 

[ziggy]

I'm not so sure about bounties not working. I grew up on a farm in western Kansas more than a few decades ago and there was a bounty on coyotes. By the time I was in my mid-teens coyotes were really, really, scarce in the area where I lived. On the other hand, you and a friend could go out and shoot enough jack rabbits to fill the back of a pick up in an afternoon. So the state put a small bounty on jack rabbits. After a few years, there were far fewer of them even though they were not what I would call scarce. Finally, someone at the state figured out that they should just take the bounty off both coyotes and jack rabbits and let nature and hunters take their course. I think that worked out OK.
Hunting can work in sparsely populated areas, but once there are many people living in an area, hunting tends to become inefficient. You just can not safely hunt in most of suburbia. I do not have knowledge of hogs in Texas, but I expect that in wide open areas where lots of people have guns, the population tends to get thinned. In areas where more people live and cover and food are available, the population tends to get out of control.
Has anybody else seen similar results from bounties, population growth, etc.?

 

[actaeon277]

No entitlement here, like I mentioned I don't mind paying for the privilege of hunting species I want to hunt. I like killing coyotes but I won't pay to do it, if I were speaking with a sheep farmer who was having problems with coyotes killing his sheep I would offer to help. Asking for me to pay for the privilege just doesn't sit right with me.

That is very different from someone who owns land, has a ton of coyotes, knows people will pay to kill them and charging people. I have no issue with that whatsoever. Perhaps it's all in how things are worded.

 

[Rookie]

I must have missed the part where the article had multiple direct quotes from hog hunting outfitters begging for help.

Considering the link isn't an article, it's a safe bet that you didn't even bother to look.

 

[ru44mag]

Here's an option for people who want to hunt hogs and were too young for Vietnam.

[video=youtube;F699DW1ZhLs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F699DW1ZhLs[/video]

I thoroughly enjoyed the video, and the music was perfect. Looks like Judge has one of the best jobs on the planet.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I'll use an example that we can all relate to a little bit better. Say INGO member A has a sudden change in his life and can longer feed and properly maintain all of his firearms. He needs to reduce the inventory a bit and asks for help by listing several items in the classifieds here. Most other reasonable members expect to get a good deal on those firearms, maybe a little better if INGO member A is in a hurry to sell but they don't expect to get them for free or next to nothing even though they are helping A out. Those firearms have value. So do the pigs even though they are destructive.

OK, how about this scenario: I'm a bee-keeper, and I have a couple hundred hives of bees on my property, and I package and sell honey, wax, and other products from the hive. But let's say that you run a water park nearby and several times each summer, swarms of bees escape my hives and decide to land on structures in your water park. Your choices would be to spray the bees with poison (which may or may not be OK with the kid's parents), or you could call a bee-keeper to come and get the swarms.

Now, those bees have value, but for every hour that a swarm of bees hangs near the kiddie pool, you're probably loosing business. So, are you going to spend time quibbling over money, or are you going let me get them and just say "Thank You".

 

[KJQ6945]

OK, how about this scenario: I'm a bee-keeper, and I have a couple hundred hives of bees on my property, and I package and sell honey, wax, and other products from the hive. But let's say that you run a water park nearby and several times each summer, swarms of bees escape my hives and decide to land on structures in your water park. Your choices would be to spray the bees with poison (which may or may not be OK with the kid's parents), or you could call a bee-keeper to come and get the swarms.

Now, those bees have value, but for every hour that a swarm of bees hangs near the kiddie pool, you're probably loosing business. So, are you going to spend time quibbling over money, or are you going let me get them and just say "Thank You".

I'm betting he quibbles, for days, then sues you over his lost revenue from the kiddie pool. Just a hunch.