New study shows that 30-50 feral hogs can make climate change even worse

boing
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People really can’t seem to stop doing stuff like this. We collectively know the dangers of introducing new critters, but people just don’t seem to care.

We see that a lot here with folks moving invasive (and non-native) fish into new watersheds all the time. The old fellers (and a disappointing number of young’uns, as well) all seem to think you can just fish the problem away, but it never works. I did the math once, and one person would have had to remove something like 80 fish a day, every single day, to offset the brood of one fish.

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You can clear kudzu away by having cows or goats graze on it, btw. :slight_smile:

https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/rx-grazing/forbs/kudzu.htm

:cow: :goat:

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But are ruminants more effective than an AR-15?

I wanna read that study.

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And with hogs, they’re not just environmentally destructive, but dangerous as well. People deliberately introducing them are risking lives - someone was killed in a feral hog attack in 2019. And once they’re introduced, it’s very well known that hunting can’t eliminate them from the area - they’re too smart.

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All we need is a couple of hungry Gauls.

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What’s that?

No, I have no idea where they got the idea that Julius Caesar lives at Mar a Lago…

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hmmm — i’ve watched a pal rock a 10 hog-run with his lever action and thermals.

although he was awed by one of his cousins talking about harvesting with gig-spears made from automotive leaf springs.

supressors are nice, cause - well, ya wouldn’t run your car without a muffler… but? hollywood/politics, they are “bad”

Poision is an issue as well, first, their music wasnt that great :stuck_out_tongue: and second, pervades the ecosystem, hawks, buzzards, and off it goes…

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Yeah. 10 hogs. Having no impact on the overall problem.

Not every poison you could use neccisarily has that issue. But it is why it’s better used in targeted fashion. Basically setting it in the path/area of a particular group of hogs. With carcasses and the bait removed after.

Sterilization has been repeatedly shown to have the largest impact, albeit that’s an over time thing. It’s not going to deal with the hogs that are eating your crops right now. But none of these things works on it’s own, or in every situation. The bigger problem is the lack of concerted, consistent effort across all areas. There’s no real eradication program.

We just sort shrug and expect assault rifles to take care of it.

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10 hogs a day, 3x/week - it could add up.

But them little bastards breed fast

also? no comment on Poison??? i tossed the 80s hair band reference / gauntlet… We need a good tangent! :slight_smile:

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For one. The way this tends to work is you do that a couple times and the hogs move. That is sort of the point.

It’s only the females and young that crowd up into sounders as well, most of the males live solitary or in small groups of 2 or 3. Spread out through a larger territory. The practical way to cull those, and small sounders. Is with dogs and traps.

The other is that we know it doesn’t add up. After more than a century of hunting and culling being the primary control mechanism. It hasn’t even slowed things down.

A feral sow can have 2 litters of up to 12 piglets a year. And with few natural predators, a whole hell of a lot of them make it. They hit breeding age at 6 months.

Populations can double in as short a time as 4 months. Any given population can go through a couple of rounds of that a year.

The main reasons we hear about hunting and culling as this be all end all hog solution. Are that in a lot of areas it’s the only thing anyone’s doing. And because the 2nd Amendment crowd have hit on it as a practical justification for suit case nukes.

Probably also because the “Outdoor” industry (ie Firearms industry) is really into promoting recreation hog hunting.

Do they deserve comment?

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Maybe this instead?

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Unfortunately legalized hunting makes the Hog problem worse, because hunters would transplant hogs to other areas to provide a hunting source closer to home. Missouri saw this happening and made Hog hunting illegal as part of the control strategy

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The larger issue as far as I’m aware is in setups for hunting tourism. If you have a chunk of land there’s good money in offering guided hog hunts.

But if there are no feral hogs on your property. Well best go get some. Even better if you can toss in some wild boar! So no we have those introduced too.

This is a major part of how they’ve been introduced and started to proliferate in states like NY and PA. It’s less that individual hunters want it closer to home, than people who will pay a lot of money to go hunt somewhere don’t want to go all the way to Texas or Florida.

In concept they’re supposed to be released into penned areas to keep them from becoming established in the area. But pigs are escape artists, even the big commercial pork producers can’t keep them contained. That’s why states with large pig farms are where the problems are biggest and oldest.

I’m not sure sure that’s the best idea. At least in the absence of a good eradication program, because then you’re removing one of the few pressures on populations. And you don’t generally want to protect invasive species. But like I said hunting, and even organized culls, don’t work. At least not for population control.

I know Missouri has a bit more going on than a lot of other states. But they don’t exactly have a ton of resources for it.

Though that also means a lack of resources for regulating and enforcing introductions, outfitters and what have. So you might as well kill the hunting market locally in that case. You can practically accomplish that, where as it just might not be possible to adequately control it otherwise.

This end of it isn’t divorced from the NRA and their pals promotion of FERAL HOGS as justification. There’s a collusion in promoting Hog hunting as this like be all, end all, REAL AMERICAN version of big game hunting. With high dollar specialized equipment, guns, and assorted merch.

So it went from something that was largely pest control, to something European Tourists will pay top dollar to do.

A big part of that was that it was, and in lot of cases still is, unregulated. Because they’re invasive we weren’t limiting people to 3 a season. Or restricting what caliber ammunition or type of weapon. The whens and wheres.

So maybe straight up ban will work better than trying to institute that after the fact. It looks like the Missouri bans are happening in collaboration with Texas, and were pushed by and through the National Parks Service. So it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, and it does seem to be broader than just Missouri.

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I brought up Missouri specifically because they saw that hunting was contributing to the spread of hogs in the state, so they had to enact a ban. But yes, in the absence of any government plan hunting is one of the few pressures hogs will see.

Didn’t we have this conversation before ? :slight_smile:

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Probably.

But what I’m saying is I dunno that they had to enact a ban. I think in the absence of resources a ban was their only option. Though with more than one party involved, it does stand a chance of nuking the promotion of it.

I think the biggest issue on this sort of thing is the lack of Federal funding and direction on it, and the lack of coordination between states.

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