I just got home from a Feral Swine clinic hosted by The Ohio Department of Wildlife. It was pretty interesting how out of control they have become in certain areas. Although not dangerous, they are very destructive to crops and can carry 30 different diseases. The wildlife officers say that trapping them is the best method eliminating them because shooting them just scatters the population elsewhere. It isn't uncommon to capture 20 or more in one group. Sound like they might be a real problem ?
Feral pigs are a horrific example of invasive species. Kill 'em or trap them and eat them, as fast as you can. Don't let them take hold.
I tried some meat from a russian hog. Blech, too wild and gamey for my tastes, and I was told they were dangerous too.
I know they're a nuisance, but sometimes I wish they were in western Ohio since it's open season all year on them. I'd happily put a few in the freezer.
Texas losing war on feral hogs By Shannon Tompkins Wednesday, July 24, 2013 Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins More than two decades into Texas' ever escalating war against feral hogs, the wild swine continue gaining ground while Texas and the state's native wildlife, plants and ecosystems lose it. Despite taking millions of casualties - an estimated 750,000-plus feral hogs have been killed each of the past few years in Texas - the non-native pigs have continued their economically and environmentally destructive march across the state, with an estimated 2.6 million of them spread across at least 240 of Texas' 254 counties. "It's just getting worse and worse; no matter what we've tried, the hogs just overwhelm us," said Stuart Marcus, manger of the 25,000-acre Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge. "They certainly are having a negative impact on native wildlife and habitat - directly and indirectly." Texas holds, by some estimates, as many as 10 times the number of feral hogs it did barely three decades ago. "The first year this agency began removing feral hogs was 1982. They took 86 pigs that year," said Michael Bodenchuk, state director of the Texas offices of Wildlife Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture branch designated to address human/wildlife conflicts. "In 2011, we removed 24,746. That pretty much tells you how the problem has grown." And it continues growing. "The estimates I've seen are that between 2006 and 2010, Texas' feral hog population grew about 21 percent a year," Bodenchuk said. And that's with Texans taking an estimated 29 percent of the pig population each year. Texas law designates the non-native feral hogs as unprotected, non-game animals and imposes almost no restrictions on when, how or how many of the hogs can be taken. They can be hunted and killed year-round, day or night; shot from aircraft; trapped in pens; attracted by bait; taken in any number. And Texans have responded to the opportunity. Recreational hunters take an estimated 600,000 feral hogs a year, finding the wild swine a challenging hunting quarry and wonderful on the table. Commercial trappers using live-catch pens annually take and sell to wild game processors another 70,000 or so of the pigs. Another 50,000 or more are killed by Texas Wildlife Services and private firms hired by landowners to knock back pig populations damaging crops or property. Losing a numbers game Even against this onslaught, wild hogs are more than holding their own. "There has been some success with reducing feral hog populations in fairly small areas," said Donnie Frels, manager of theTexas Parks and Wildlife Department's Kerr Wildlife Management Area, a premier wildlife research site that is involved in feral hog research. "But so far, we haven't come up with any control mechanism that works for a long period of time over a large area." Feral hogs are perfectly equipped to survive and thrive, even under intense prosecution. The progeny of domestic hogs that quickly turned feral or hybrids between domestic feral pigs and European wild hogs, feral hogs are omnivores with a nondiscriminatory palate. Mostly traveling in social groups - sounders - holding 10-40 or more adults and their young, feral hogs use their strong snouts and necks to root for food that they consume almost nonstop. And they will eat almost anything - tubers, acorns, insects, agricultural crops (they annually cause more than $50 million in damage to Texas agriculture) and all manner of plants (even young trees) - and are opportunist predators on reptiles, amphibians, ground-nesting birds and small mammals. Feral hogs have been documented preying on turkey and quail nests and, in some areas, are major predators on turtle nests. Their prodigious reproductive capability is another key to their success. Sows begin reproducing at eight months and produce three litters every two years, with an average litter of almost six piglets. "The populations just explode," Bodenchuk said. The expanding populations inflict considerable damage to Texas native wildlife and ecosystems. Feral hogs compete directly with white-tailed deer for forage, especially acorns and other mast. They also "hog" the tens of thousands of corn- and protein-dispensing feeders placed by hunters as supplemental feed for deer; research shows feeders frequented by feral hogs are avoided by deer and other native wildlife. Threat to vegetation Feral hogs also can greatly reduce availability of vegetation crucial to deer, quail, turkey and other native wildlife. A research project by Rice and Texas A&M universities conducted in the Big Thicket of southeast Texas used fenced and unfenced plots of land to gauge impacts of feral hogs. The plots used by hogs saw plant diversity reduced, fewer forbs, fewer large-seed (mast producing) trees, loss of leaf-litter ground cover resulting in a reduction in the abundance of invertebrates and small vertebrates, and changes in soil chemistry that changed plant communities. The research also indicated plots disturbed by feral hogs grew twice as many Chinese tallow trees as the hog-free areas. Tallow trees are one of the most problematic non-native, invasive plants threatening Texas, as the tallows grow in dense monocultures, shade out native trees and grasses, are of almost no value to wildlife, and are almost impossible to control. Stuart Marcus witnesses this on the Trinity River refuge. "I call feral hogs 'walking tallow trees,' " he said. "They are just as bad as tallow trees, and wherever they root up the ground, tallow trees seem to sprout by the hundreds." Feral hogs' rooting behavior causes severe damage to environmentally sensitive and hugely important areas along waterways, particularly in central, south and western Texas where such waterways are limited. "They definitely impact plant communities and really do serious damage to riparian areas, especially the western half of the state," Frels said. These impacts on native wildlife and the habitat on which they depend is behind the state wildlife agency's involvement in research aimed at reducing feral hog populations. "We're not in the animal control business," Frels said. "But we do have a keen interest in our native wildlife and the things affecting them. That's what got us into feral hog research." Sodium nitrite A big part of that research is a cooperative effort with other government agencies in developing a potentially significant new method of reducing feral hog populations: poison, an option currently not available because of federal prohibitions. For the past three years, research at the Kerr wildlife area has focused on sodium nitrite, a toxicant that has been used to great effect against feral hogs in Australia. Sodium nitrite kills by disrupting blood's ability to carry oxygen to the brain. Pigs are highly susceptible to sodium nitrite because, unlike humans and other mammals, they lack the ability to produce an enzyme that reverses the effects. A feral hog ingesting a lethal dose of sodium nitrite quickly becomes lethargic, then unconscious. Death occurs within 90 minutes. Research indicates the poisoned pigs pose little or no threat to scavengers or predators. Developing bait/sodium nitrite mixtures that feral hogs will eat and that deliver a lethal dose of the substance and a "delivery system" - a feeder - that feral hogs can access but can't be used by deer, raccoons and other non-target wildlife are the focus of research at the Kerr. "It's showing some promise," Frels said of sodium nitrite's potential as another tool to use against feral hogs. "But there's still a long way to go before it could become an option." If it does, it could help turn the tide in the battle against feral hogs. In Australia, use of sodium nitrite has reduced feral hog populations in large areas by as much as 89 percent. Just to stabilize Texas' feral hog population would require removing about 70 percent of the population over a single year and continuing that level of population reduction for multiple years, Bodenchuk said. "Right now," he said, "we're not even taking half that number."
About three months ago a semi overturned about two miles from my house with over 2200 piglets. 300 got away. They are now being spotted in groups of 10-12 in farm fields around here. I think the DNR is very concerned.
We got them here also. Problem most are on private lands, makes it almost impossible to hunt them to any real extent unless property owner signs on with the DNR for crop damage. That is fairly restricted as well.
I cannot remember where the russian boar was from, it was either Texas or Michigan, I think Michigan. In Texas, WildWildWest used his grandfathers rifle initially for sentimental reasons, he said that gun that had taken so many deer and elk over the years, but the bullet literally bounced off the boar in Texas.
wildwest, be careful in man talk you just told your husband he needs another rifle! In which case I would recommend a 30-06 or .308 Big enough to drop any hog from a distance
I lived in SC for a few years, hogs are a huge problem. We ran dogs on them and caught a lot of pigs. But the damage they do is crazy. I've seen a 20 acre corn field leveled in almost mo time by a group of wild hogs. As far as taste goes I've cooked many wild and domestic hogs and people have not been able to tell a difference. It probably has a lot do do with where they live and more importantly what they eat.
We were talking about these today. One of the Louisiana guys said they trapped them and then fed them out to make them taste a little better.
