Feral Hogs are getting out of hand

[ramman123]

and before you guys Criticize me any further one thing you ought to know is i hunt for pigs outside of MO yes i have seen the destruction but i havent seen it as prevalent here in MO but the signs are showing up.

 

i have been on trips with 4-6 other guys and we have all come back with easily 2 pigs a person on any single trip so tell me how hunting them wont work, so with 6 guys at 2 pigs a person that is roughly maybe the same equivalent that the supposed trapping says works 

It wont work if u guys wont get off ur cans and go hunt them instead u all complain and the problem only gets worse 

[MOPanfisher]

No doubt that the human race has caused more destruction than any other species.  I don't ooh and ahh at homes built in nice places, I always think we'll there is another nice piece of property ruined with a house.  however I see neither of those things changing anytime soon.  Deer will reproduce with 1 or maybe 2 young a year.  Hogs will have 2 litters of 4 to 8 a year depending on food availability, much steeper population curve.  many things are killed an not eaten, don't see many trpapers eating muskrats, coyotes, or otters. I have shot deer that were obviously diseased and sick, didnt eat them either.  the main reason for not providing them to people when trapped has more to do with avoiding litigation should the one in a thousand chance that someone contracts anything after being given a feral hog, and decides to sue.   the trapping efforts   I have helped with took place in July or August, way back in the middle of nowhere, hot, and muggy to say the least.  By the time you get to them they have been in the trap for several hours and have it stomped into a quagmire of mud and pig poop with it all over them.  kill them, get them loaded into something to get them out, stop at a car wash to clean them up, then to a place where you can process them.  By the time you get to that 5th or 6th one they have been dead awhile.  I am not even sure if most meat processors will take them, when doing deer they basically have to shut down  decontaminate their equipment, process deer and then decontaminate  again before they can go back to pork or beef.  I would suspect there might be some regulations on mixing a feral  hog with domestic but honestly don't know.  I am NOT criticizing you at all, just  trying explain some of the whys.  As you stated the damage is not as bad in MO as in other states but you can see the beginnings of it, maybe trapping can stop it before it gets that far.  I do advocate a mixed approach to the eradication of feral hoga, trapping, tracking, aerial shooting AND use of dogs to get the remaining ones after trapping.  I do like the idea of being able to take a pig while hunting but am not willing to accept the damage they do just so I can have an option to harvest one.

[Chief Grey Bear]

1 hour ago, ramman123 said:

and before you guys Criticize me any further one thing you ought to know is i hunt for pigs outside of MO yes i have seen the destruction but i havent seen it as prevalent here in MO but the signs are showing up.

 

i have been on trips with 4-6 other guys and we have all come back with easily 2 pigs a person on any single trip so tell me how hunting them wont work, so with 6 guys at 2 pigs a person that is roughly maybe the same equivalent that the supposed trapping says works 

It wont work if u guys wont get off ur cans and go hunt them instead u all complain and the problem only gets worse 

Maybe mathematics isn't your area of expertise.

[ramman123]

chief ur one example of not doing anything about the issue at topic since replying instead of out capturing or hunting these so called PEST

[Chief Grey Bear]

How do you know?

[SpoonDog]

On 11/11/2016 at 7:32 PM, Walcrabass said:

4. Why is it that we haven't done more about killing them already? Because Bass ( you know who) or other outdoor retailers haven't started selling "Hog calls" , Hog Guns, hog attractor scents, etc. Get the picture? In other words not enough money pumped into it yet. People are suckers for marketing...... we just haven't done it enough yet for Hogs.If everyone knew how good they tasted and how to hunt them ( bait included) they would have been pursued much harder. Why?? Because certain agencies have made this a "gray area" and most hunters did not know where they stood with legally killing them. In other words............NOT PROMOTED !!!!

Hog hunting requires hogs.

MDC doesn't want hogs.

It's really that simple.

You can say sportsmen will ride into the rescue and eliminate a nuisance species, but in reality that almost never happens. Trout, walleye, pike, stripers, smallmouth, pheasants- take your pick.  Once they've developed a constituency among sportsmen it's almost impossible for an agency to get rid of them, no matter how much environmental damage they do.  And why would it?  A guy who's dropped 30k on a boat doesn't want stripers eliminated from the Sacramento delta, a guy who just bough his hog calls, hog guns, hog attractor scents etc. isn't going to want hogs gone from the state tomorrow, next year, or the year after.  It's diametrically opposed to MDC's management goals, and that's exactly why MDC doesn't want to do it. 

On 11/12/2016 at 10:59 AM, ramman123 said:

Oh as i stated before isnt against the Code of Ethics not to use or eat what you kill.

What's the "code of ethics" say about knowingly violating game laws?

[fishinwrench]

They allow the trapping/killing of otters, do they not? 

[SpoonDog]

Sure.  Otters are native, they're not 300 lbs, and my quick google search revealed zero returns for "trophy otter hunt" and 1200+ for "trophy hog hunt."

 

I couldn't find MDC Hog harvest reports from back when it was legal, but it never really seemed like many folks were out there looking for them.  I couldn't find MDC harvest records from back when hog hunting was legal- but NC's are online.  In 2010 total reported harvest was....ready? 158.  Not 158,000,  158.  Look.  . From 2003-2010 harvest never exceeded 200.  In a state with lots of hogs and lots of hog hunters not many hogs are being killed, and even if MDC was lying through their teeth and killed a tenth of the hogs they reported, they'd still be lightyears ahead. 

 

If your entire argument rests on hogs being a grave threat,  I have absolutely no idea why you'd want MDC using a less efficient system to eliminate them.

[fishinwrench]

They can trap them if they want, but they should still allow hunting/shooting of them wherever hunting and shooting is legal.  I don't have any stake in this at all since I've never been bothered by a feral hog in my life.  

The whole argument that if you shoot one they all disperse and then they are scattered and not in a big pack.  Well GOOD!    Isn't that the desired hog behavior we'd rather have?

As for the tally of hogs harvested by hunters.....those numbers don't mean squat.  Is there some kind of magical satellite thing that racks up a number every time a hogs blood pools up on the soil? 

[Al Agnew]

1 hour ago, fishinwrench said:

They can trap them if they want, but they should still allow hunting/shooting of them wherever hunting and shooting is legal.  I don't have any stake in this at all since I've never been bothered by a feral hog in my life.  

The whole argument that if you shoot one they all disperse and then they are scattered and not in a big pack.  Well GOOD!    Isn't that the desired hog behavior we'd rather have?

As for the tally of hogs harvested by hunters.....those numbers don't mean squat.  Is there some kind of magical satellite thing that racks up a number every time a hogs blood pools up on the soil? 

No, that's not the desired hog behavior.. 

What's desired is zero hogs. Scattering the herd means much more difficulty in tracking the rest of them down and killing them, and meanwhile the scattered hogs get back together long enough to breed more hogs. Again, bottom line is this: the goal is eradication.. Hunting cannot eradicate them. Trapping has a better chance of doing so. Hunting makes trapping more difficult and less effective. Plus, as somebody above pointed out, the more popular hunting gets, the more the hunters will want MORE hogs, not zero hogs.