Nothing Like Texas

[Chuckanut]

As a morally superior non-Texan, the Texans who care (all 3 of them) have my permission to kill feral pigs that are destroying the god given pasture land that is needed by many other plants and critters.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

Even if the population needs to be culled it can be done without celebrating.

I do understand your point, but making it into a fun event makes citizens volunteer to help with something that needs to be done. If it isn't fun, its WORK and the government would have to pay someone to eradicate the animals without celebrating. And then they'd have to raise taxes to pay for it, etc.

 

[LOL!]

This thread reminded me of hunting in the early 1960's in Texas.

Here is link to a 1961 LIFE magazine article / photos on white-winged dove hunting in Texas. It shows that hunting is a family affair and shotgun pellets and feathers can rain from the sky.

Hunting Season: Photos From a Texas Dove Hunt, 1961 | Time.com

(click on the right arrow on the photos to see the photo series)

 

[marinauser]

Teacher Terry: Eliminating feral pigs in Texas and many other states is not meant to be "hunting". It is pest elimination no different than the elimination of rats in large cities. Actual hunting such as duck, pheasant or deer hunting is something entirely different and should not be confused with the elimination of wild pigs. The side beneift that wild pig killing brings is meat that can provide for families - sometimes those that killed the pigs, and sometimes for poor families in the area. Wild pigs are estimated to do at least $50 million a year in damage to agricultural lands in Texas.

 

[SheitlQueen]

Using drones and other technologies does not seem very sporting to me. Ugh! I wouldn’t want to live in Texas if this is their idea of fun

This isn't to be sporting, it is to eradicate an invasive species that does tremendous damage to native animals, plants, and crops.

 

[ownyourfuture]

Here's how big they can get:

https://www.chron.com/news/bizarre/article/Half-ton-hog-killed-by-boy-with-pistol-1830740.php

Half-ton hog killed by boy with pistol - Houston Chronicle
chron.com

An 11-year-old boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9 feet 4, from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. If the claims...

View attachment 31024

Great photoshop work. LOL

 

[aja8888]

Great photoshop work. LOL

Ok, he was really only 400 pounds.

 

[JDARNELL]

When I was stationed in Ohio PETA captured a bunch of deer and put orange vest on them for deer season. A local radio station would give a hunter a box of shells if they brought in a deer with an orange vest. Opening day over 400 deer with orange vest were killed. The hunters said it was much easier to see them. Lol.

 

[aja8888]

When I was stationed in Ohio PETA captured a bunch of deer and put orange vest on them for deer season. A local radio station would give a hunter a box of shells if they brought in a deer with an orange vest. Opening day over 400 deer with orange vest were killed. The hunters said it was much easier to see them. Lol.

How many hunters with orange vests were shot?

 

[JDARNELL]

How many hunters with orange vests were shot?

I don’t remember them talking about that on the radio or in the paper. But the unattended consequences of ideas.

 

[REWahoo]

When I was stationed in Ohio PETA captured a bunch of deer and put orange vest on them for deer season.

I know the hog hunters in TX would love for PETA to run a similar promotion down here.

 

[Scrapr]

How many hunters with orange vests were shot?

and how many deer had orange vests applied after being harvested?

on the other hand the reflective vests would make spotlighting deer a lot easier...allegedly

 

[NW-Bound]

Looking at what feral pigs can do, I feel embarrassed remembering how traumatized I was when I had a couple of gophers in my lawn. These are powerful animals!

 

[Teacher Terry]

I respectfully ask that this thread be closed.

 

[REWahoo]

The US Dept of Agriculture is working on a poison to help control the wild hog population. In what has to be a strange irony, the poison being tested is sodium nitrite, the same chemical used to cure bacon.

Toxic bait test

One of the federal eradication programs underway involves testing sodium nitrite toxic bait, which when eaten in high doses by the wild pigs can be fatal in three hours or less. The substance is used in small quantities as a meat preservative to cure meats, including bacon.

Feral hogs cause up to $2.5 billion in damage a year, so the government is boosting efforts to fight them

Treating them just like we do rats or cockroaches. Not nearly as much fun as hunting them.

 

[audreyh1]

I respectfully ask that this thread remain open.

 

[Winemaker]

Feral hogs are also a large problem in the Hawaiian Islands. Last year, DSIL and I were to go on a hog hunt in Maui, but couldn't get our schedules to match. Invasive species are a problem everywhere, to some degree. Some of the areas around the Great Lake areas are under great stress due to ...earthworms! Earthworms are not native to some areas near the Great Lakes, and when a unsuspecting angler would dump his unused earthworms on the lake shore, they do what earthworms do. They eat the organic material on the forest floor, and open up vast areas to erosion, upset the soil composition and mess things up.

On a similar but separate note, Hawaii has banned certain sunscreens because the kill the coral reefs.

 

[MichaelB]

I respectfully ask that this thread be closed.

Why don’t you just ignore the thread? If you see a program on the TV you don’t care for, you change the channel.

 

[Koolau]

Feral hog hunting in the Islands is less organized but quite common. Some families can pretty much exist on the efforts of their hunting and fishing. Throw in some fruit tress and a truck patch, and a country boy can survive - in Paradise. YMMV

 

[audreyh1]

I think you meant taro patch?

 

[Music Lover]

Why don’t you just ignore the thread? If you see a program on the TV you don’t care for, you change the channel.

Rather than not watch, there are always a few that will call and demand the show be taken off the air.

 

[ownyourfuture]

Congrats TT, you made my ignore list. Only the 2nd person to do so since I arrived here in 2013.

 

[W2R]

Gotta love Texas and all their freedom!

I lived in Texas for 13 years, and I completely agree! Love Texans, too; the ones I knew were such amazing but also down to earth people. The only thing I didn't like about living in College Station, was the weather. Insanely hot in the summertime, with no rains to cool things down. Well, and if I hadn't moved to New Orleans for the job, then after my divorce I would never have met F so I admit I do love Louisiana too.

I am not a hunter so I skipped over a lot of photos and stuff in this thread. Didn't notice anything too awful, though. That's the nice thing about the internet; it's usually pretty easy to skip things. I also saw but did not click on a certain video from New Zealand earlier this week. I am too sensitive to watch senseless mass carnage, so I avoid that sort of stuff, as well as photos of overt public gay sex at festivals here in New Orleans. I'm pretty adept at avoiding things on the internet that I don't want to see or read about. But then, I have been using the internet daily since 1985 or earlier, well before the world wide web. It's probably harder for those who haven't had the time or inclination to develop any avoidance skills.

The feral hog population in Louisiana is growing faster than hunters can harvest them, so they are now considering or using poison to keep them back. (EDIT: I see that REWahoo mentioned they are doing the same in Texas. Oops, I missed reading that. Oh well the same applies here.)
https://www.nola.com/outdoors/2017/02/wild_hog_poison_likely_coming.html
Hunters use the feral hog population for food and sport both, so I don't see why anybody would think hunting is not preferable to poison.

 

[N02L84ER]

I read an article about feral hogs in the Missouri Ozarks. The government requested people not hunt the hogs because they had a "trap and cull" system set up. Since they were providing food in the trap, the "hunters" knew where to find the hogs. Any hogs that escaped the hunters would spread out, not return, and continue to breed. Then new areas needed to be culled. I do not know if their method is or is not more effective than the Texas method.

 

[Koolau]

I think you meant taro patch?

Heh, heh, I actually I rejected the taro patch. Most local folks wouldn't know how to do it and it takes too much water and labor. In fact, there has been a taro shortage with poi prices going up. YMMV