7 ms·

Open season without limits should be an easy way to deal with many of them. This is usually true for most "nuance animals" Why track them and remove?

tonyarkles 6y ago
West of Ontario in Saskatchewan, wild board are considered to be pests and it is open season. https://www.rgsl.ca/wild-boar-in-saskatchewan/ https://www.rgsl.ca/wild-boar-in-saskatchewan/
germinalphrase 6y ago
The scale of the problem - at least in some states - makes eradication impossible. Feral hogs have a gestation period of only 115 days and reach sexual maturity in just 6 months. Texas has 4 million feral pigs. They need to kill 75 percent a year just to keep the population stabile. Texas already has 24/7, 365 open hunting (with dogs, traps, helicopters, etc) and it is not adequate.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  "hunting" almost seems like a euphemistic term when people are shooting machine guns and automatic shotguns out the side of a helicopter. I realize they are an invasive species and can't be allowed to multiply unchecked, but it makes me sad to think of fairly intelligent animals being slaughtered en masse, often with no intention of recovering the meat. I do understand they are quite dangerous and destructive creatures, but still...
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    When it comes to hogs, it's a matter of extermination, not 'hunting'/sport. Pulling punches with notions of sportsmanship and respect for the animal totally misses the point. These aren't elk. Of course, even the extreme measures taken against hogs (explosives, machine guns, etc) seem to be doing little good.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      it seems like we both agree that "hunting" is not quite the right word for what is going on. to be clear, I'm not saying extermination is morally wrong in this case; it's clearly necessary to protect the local ecosystem. what's tragic is that we created this problem in the first place, and it seems the only solution left is to kill as many of them as we can as efficiently as possible.
      - Balgair 6y ago
        It's curious. The US is a heavily militarized state, spending a lot of money on it's use of weapons. However, these weapons tend to be very expensive and hyper targetable. But just killing literal pigs, in the wild, with really no restrictions at all, and practically no need to track the kills or process them for food, is a nearly impossible task. Just pure, cheap, blunt weapons will do the job more than fine. But there just isn't enough, even with the massive spendings.
        philwelch 6y ago
        I’m reminded of Australia’s unsuccessful war against emus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
  - samatman 6y ago
    The term 'culling' is also in common use, and I can see where one would prefer it.
LanceH 6y ago
If you have a couple hundred, hunting might work. If you have 80,000 and hunting them makes them run up to 100 miles away and turn nocturnal, it can make everything worse.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  To be fair, some might count "the hogs ran 100 miles away" a local success, if their chief concern is hogs in their backyard where their small children play.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    It's like combatting black mold with bleach-filled paintballs. The impact of cleaning one spot is that the infection spreads to a wider range. As the diaspora grows exponentially, it will quickly return to the spot you just cleaned.
- cma 6y ago
  Turning them nocturnal probably makes them less efficient food consumers/breeders right? Otherwise it seems like they would turn nocturnal without the presence of hunters. So it still seems like an improvement, unless there are frequent night attacks on humans or something that don't happen in the day (if being driven nocturnal to avoid humans I wouldn't think so). Running 100 miles away, if there is food heir they would eventually breed themselves over to their anyway without hunting anyway wouldn't they?
  - kjs3 6y ago
    Re-read the article. The 'big risk' isn't attacking humans (tho it's a concern), it's destruction of ecology and agriculture. If you're going to dig up and eat the farmers crops, doing at night is worse for the farmer. And there's another farm 100 miles away. Further, there's nothing in the article that indicates the hogs are less efficient at night. Since hogs already have poor eyesight and extremely good smell, there's no reason to believe night is much impediment.
compiler-guy 6y ago
This approach is painfully naive. The State of Texas--which is absolutely full of hunters and gun owners and such--has "shoot on sight" rules for hunting feral hogs. There are no limits and the season is always open. The problem is only getting worse.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Without the hunting though, it would be even worse. If these hogs have no natural predators, the only thing that would check their population is running out of food.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Texas problem is a land problem. You can't just see hogs in a field and shoot them. You need permission from the land owner (this goes for pretty much everywhere). Texas is particularly bad because owners see hunting as a possible revenue stream since there is literally no state land open to hunting so they don't grant permission to just anyone.
- phkahler 6y ago
  Right. Imagine if they instituted that policy when there were only 500 of them. Maybe even offered a $1000 reward. They couldn't afford that today, but this other place should do all of that right now.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- int_19h 6y ago
  It would have likely worked back when US had enough hunters - there's no shortage of species that were wiped out in that manner before effective regulations were instituted. But these days, it doesn't even have enough to keep deer in eastern states in check, much less hogs (which multiply and spread faster).
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Why track them and remove? Because people get their panties in a knot over the idea of loosening other hunting laws enough to let an open season make a difference. As long as it's not ok to just shoot a hog on the side of the road a baseline population is going to exist in perpetuity in rural/suburban areas where property owners don't generally tolerate people shooting hogs off their front lawn from the road.

tonyarkles 6y ago

West of Ontario in Saskatchewan, wild board are considered to be pests and it is open season. https://www.rgsl.ca/wild-boar-in-saskatchewan/ https://www.rgsl.ca/wild-boar-in-saskatchewan/

germinalphrase 6y ago

The scale of the problem - at least in some states - makes eradication impossible. Feral hogs have a gestation period of only 115 days and reach sexual maturity in just 6 months. Texas has 4 million feral pigs. They need to kill 75 percent a year just to keep the population stabile. Texas already has 24/7, 365 open hunting (with dogs, traps, helicopters, etc) and it is not adequate.

leetcrew 6y ago
"hunting" almost seems like a euphemistic term when people are shooting machine guns and automatic shotguns out the side of a helicopter. I realize they are an invasive species and can't be allowed to multiply unchecked, but it makes me sad to think of fairly intelligent animals being slaughtered en masse, often with no intention of recovering the meat. I do understand they are quite dangerous and destructive creatures, but still...
- bigbubba 6y ago
  When it comes to hogs, it's a matter of extermination, not 'hunting'/sport. Pulling punches with notions of sportsmanship and respect for the animal totally misses the point. These aren't elk. Of course, even the extreme measures taken against hogs (explosives, machine guns, etc) seem to be doing little good.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    it seems like we both agree that "hunting" is not quite the right word for what is going on. to be clear, I'm not saying extermination is morally wrong in this case; it's clearly necessary to protect the local ecosystem. what's tragic is that we created this problem in the first place, and it seems the only solution left is to kill as many of them as we can as efficiently as possible.
    - Balgair 6y ago
      It's curious. The US is a heavily militarized state, spending a lot of money on it's use of weapons. However, these weapons tend to be very expensive and hyper targetable. But just killing literal pigs, in the wild, with really no restrictions at all, and practically no need to track the kills or process them for food, is a nearly impossible task. Just pure, cheap, blunt weapons will do the job more than fine. But there just isn't enough, even with the massive spendings.
      - philwelch 6y ago
        I’m reminded of Australia’s unsuccessful war against emus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
- samatman 6y ago
  The term 'culling' is also in common use, and I can see where one would prefer it.

LanceH 6y ago

If you have a couple hundred, hunting might work. If you have 80,000 and hunting them makes them run up to 100 miles away and turn nocturnal, it can make everything worse.

bigbubba 6y ago
To be fair, some might count "the hogs ran 100 miles away" a local success, if their chief concern is hogs in their backyard where their small children play.
- klyrs 6y ago
  It's like combatting black mold with bleach-filled paintballs. The impact of cleaning one spot is that the infection spreads to a wider range. As the diaspora grows exponentially, it will quickly return to the spot you just cleaned.
cma 6y ago
Turning them nocturnal probably makes them less efficient food consumers/breeders right? Otherwise it seems like they would turn nocturnal without the presence of hunters. So it still seems like an improvement, unless there are frequent night attacks on humans or something that don't happen in the day (if being driven nocturnal to avoid humans I wouldn't think so). Running 100 miles away, if there is food heir they would eventually breed themselves over to their anyway without hunting anyway wouldn't they?
- kjs3 6y ago
  Re-read the article. The 'big risk' isn't attacking humans (tho it's a concern), it's destruction of ecology and agriculture. If you're going to dig up and eat the farmers crops, doing at night is worse for the farmer. And there's another farm 100 miles away. Further, there's nothing in the article that indicates the hogs are less efficient at night. Since hogs already have poor eyesight and extremely good smell, there's no reason to believe night is much impediment.

compiler-guy 6y ago

This approach is painfully naive. The State of Texas--which is absolutely full of hunters and gun owners and such--has "shoot on sight" rules for hunting feral hogs. There are no limits and the season is always open. The problem is only getting worse.

chrisco255 6y ago
Without the hunting though, it would be even worse. If these hogs have no natural predators, the only thing that would check their population is running out of food.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Texas problem is a land problem. You can't just see hogs in a field and shoot them. You need permission from the land owner (this goes for pretty much everywhere). Texas is particularly bad because owners see hunting as a possible revenue stream since there is literally no state land open to hunting so they don't grant permission to just anyone.
phkahler 6y ago
Right. Imagine if they instituted that policy when there were only 500 of them. Maybe even offered a $1000 reward. They couldn't afford that today, but this other place should do all of that right now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
int_19h 6y ago
It would have likely worked back when US had enough hunters - there's no shortage of species that were wiped out in that manner before effective regulations were instituted. But these days, it doesn't even have enough to keep deer in eastern states in check, much less hogs (which multiply and spread faster).

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Why track them and remove? Because people get their panties in a knot over the idea of loosening other hunting laws enough to let an open season make a difference. As long as it's not ok to just shoot a hog on the side of the road a baseline population is going to exist in perpetuity in rural/suburban areas where property owners don't generally tolerate people shooting hogs off their front lawn from the road.