They want to poison wild hogs Texas

Status
Not open for further replies.
Good info, Texas45, thanks for the link. Apparently, there are some feral pigs in Oregon, but it hasn't reached the level that your problem has become. We should all be watching how you folks handle the problem that we may learn from your successes and for what measures didn't work out.
 
I see many raptors on a regular basis, including eagles nesting in the area, bobcats, etc., that will all become effected by a mass poisoning.
Click to expand...
Warfarin has extremely low toxicity in birds.
It's not likely a Bobcat could ingest enough from a dead hog to be harmed.
 
if Texas has a hog problem its their own fault, there is no shortage of hunters that would decimate the hog population. The problem is Texas allows property owners to charge to hunt hogs and they make a ton of money doing so. Its a huge industry there, so I cant imagine any legislation would pass easily to outlaw it. They also sold off all their public land.

We have feral hogs here in Oregon, but its against the law to charge someone to hunt them here. Its open season year round, no tags no limit. Suffice to say its extremely rare to see a hog out here.

Poisoning them is a stupid idea.
 
If there was a commercial processor that could buy the hogs and put them on the market, I'm sure they would be hunted much more aggressively. Most hunters will not shoot an animal for the heck of it and leave it to rot. There is only so much meat one really needs. Now if we were able to market natural pork, I believe we could make some major headway. Hopefully it would drive down the cost of bacon!
 
if Texas has a hog problem its their own fault, there is no shortage of hunters that would decimate the hog population. The problem is Texas allows property owners to charge to hunt hogs and they make a ton of money doing so. Its a huge industry there, so I cant imagine any legislation would pass easily to outlaw it. They also sold off all their public land.

We have feral hogs here in Oregon, but its against the law to charge someone to hunt them here. Its open season year round, no tags no limit. Suffice to say its extremely rare to see a hog out here.
Click to expand...

I see your Oregon system is working well. The distribution of hogs in Oregon has expanded greatly in only a few years...

2012 Map http://ohiodnr.gov/portals/0/images/invasives/national-swine-map.jpg
2015 Map http://swine.vet.uga.edu/nfsms/information/maps/swineDistribution2015.jpg

Considering how recent your problem is, that is pretty darned dramatic. Oregon didn't have any in the 80s and now look at it...
https://www.qdma.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Feral-hog-distribution-2015-qdma.jpg

Charging to hunt hogs actually has allowed people to hunt on more lands than would otherwise be open for hunting. Texans are no different than Oregonians when it comes to letting strangers hunt on their land. The answer is usually NO unless there is profit to be made.

Oregon has also made it a law, as of 2009 that hog damage and sightings of hogs are supposed to be reported and that it is the legal responsibility of landowners/managers to rid feral hogs from lands under their control.
Landowners and land managers are
required to contact their local ODFW office
within 10 days of discovering feral swine
on their land. They, then, have 60 days to
submit a feral swine removal plan
to the department for approval.
Click to expand...
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/conservationstrategy/invasive_species/docs/Felal_Swine_Brochure.pdf

Feral hogs are a problem in every state where they exist, including Oregon. Y'all are lucky in that your problem is fairly new and small and maybe you can nip it early, but so far, y'all don't appear to be winning that battle, either.

If there was a commercial processor that could buy the hogs and put them on the market, I'm sure they would be hunted much more aggressively. Most hunters will not shoot an animal for the heck of it and leave it to rot. There is only so much meat one really needs. Now if we were able to market natural pork, I believe we could make some major headway. Hopefully it would drive down the cost of bacon!
Click to expand...

There is a very good market for feral hog meat and we have inspection and buying facilities all over the state for LIVE hogs. Hogs are considered to be livestock and regulated as such when it comes to the sale or distribution for public consumption. The animals must be first inspected before slaughter and afterwards just like farm pigs and cattle.

As for not shooting an animal and leaving it to rot, hunters do it all the time with animals that don't like, often categorizing them in some derogatory manner (e.g., vermin, pests, etc.) such as coyotes, foxes, bobcat, raccoons, opossums, armadillos, stray dogs, feral cats, beaver, nutria, snakes, mountain lions, squirrels, etc.
 
Double Naught Spy,

The issue is the animals must be taken live. I'm not sure how wary hogs are of traps, but based on the fact someone isn't making a ton of money trapping them and bringing them to market leads me to believe taking hogs live is easier said than done.

As for not shooting animals and leaving them to rot, I get your point. I would call it pest control rather than hunting though. Maybe it is just semantics.
 
I see your Oregon system is working well. The distribution of hogs in Oregon has expanded greatly in only a few years...
Click to expand...

oh absolutely, feral hogs are a real problem thats only going to get worse for any state that has them.
but trust me when I say its still extremely rare to see one here. Comparing Oregon's problem with Texas isn't the same comparison, Texas has virtually no public land. Oregon has a ton of public land (without googling it I will just roughly guess at least half. could be wrong... but we have a lot) and so hunters do not need to ask permission to find land to hunt here and whats interesting is most of the feral hogs here are confined to private lands... because hunters keep them there until they occasionally spill over onto public lands.

Charging to hunt hogs actually has allowed people to hunt on more lands than would otherwise be open for hunting. Texans are no different than Oregonians when it comes to letting strangers hunt on their land. The answer is usually NO unless there is profit to be made.
Click to expand...
I can agree with that to a point. It works for Texas because you sold off all your public land and not every land owner is a hunting outfit, therein lies the problem I agree its not easy to get permission...

I asked a land owner last year if I could hunt hogs on his land. He politely said no (but gave me a tip).... I spent a weekend in hog country, and only found tracks on public land here. Most land owners wont let strangers hunt on their land, its hard to get permission. But in Texas since its legal to charge to hunt hogs, they have hunting ranches down there for that and they make a lot of money doing it... so I'm going out on a limb here (not much of one) to say its the states own fault if they have a problem... They call it a "hog problem" but at over $1700/hour to heli hog hunt, Id say Texans don't really want to get rid of them.

http://www.helihoghunt.com/pricing
 
Last edited:
If I were a farmer or rancher who really wanted to get rid of the pigs, I would charge a fee to hunt... with a sliding scale of rebates the MORE you killed. Shoot a big boar for a "trophy" and you pay the full amount, wipe out a sounder or two and you get your entry money back.
 
The issue is the animals must be taken live. I'm not sure how wary hogs are of traps,
Click to expand...

Hogs soon wise up about traps. Catch one or a few hogs from a sounder and the rest will avoid traps like the plague. i am now trying to deal with several sounders of trap shy hogs.

IME: If any part of hog trapping could be called "easy"; the easiest hogs to trap are solitary boars.

but based on the fact someone isn't making a ton of money trapping them and bringing them to market leads me to believe taking hogs live is easier said than done.
Click to expand...

i know hog trappers and hog doggers who are making a good living selling wild hogs to meat processors and "hunting ranches". The "hunting ranches" here pay up to $500 for a boar with big cutters.
 
I think that some folks might have some wrong impressions about Texas and hog hunting, compared to other states. The people here that have made a business out of charging to hunt their properties are a very small percentage compared to the actual volume of land in Texas. Businesses generally high fence their property and put exotics or other game animals within their perimeters to charge for. Barring any accidental escape of the animals, they are contained on these properties and escapes are rare as these businessmen have some pretty large investments in the animals.
I see a lot of reference on here about hunting private lands and landowners not being hunter friendly...and it's not any different than other states in this regard. I grew up hunting in pheasants and ducks in Nebraska, deer and antelope in Wyoming, etc... In all cases I have found you need to establish a relationship of sorts with landowners so they know you will respect their property and not cause other problems for them. If you just stop near a house on a farm in Nebraska and ask if you can hunt their cornfields, beetfields, etc., chances are if you don't get really lucky, they will turn you down. Would you let strangers get out and stomp your crops down just to be friendly?
Just a guess on my part, but I would have to say probably 999 landowners out of 1,000 are not charging to hunt hogs on their land....they are just protecting their property and chances are local people they are better acquainted with are hunting the property if hunting is taking place there.
 
I can agree with that to a point. It works for Texas because you sold off all your public land and not every land owner is a hunting outfit, therein lies the problem I agree its not easy to get permission...
Click to expand...

Even in states with lots more public lands, they have lots of hog problems. Louisiana, for example, is also considering Warfarin at this time.

But in Texas since its legal to charge to hunt hogs, they have hunting ranches down there for that and they make a lot of money doing it... so I'm going out on a limb here (not much of one) to say its the states own fault if they have a problem... They call it a "hog problem" but at over $1700/hour to heli hog hunt, Id say Texans don't really want to get rid of them.
Click to expand...

As far as helihunting goes, they kill more hogs than just about anybody. I have talked with operators of several heli-hunt services. They are usually booked up weeks in advance. Their biggest problem are hunts cancelled due to bad weather and the client gets mad because it may be 3-6 weeks before there is another opening. The price isn't keeping clients away. You are completely misunderstanding the problem.

You keep wanting to make the hog problem a Texas issue, but it really isn't. Until your state wins the war on hogs, you don't have a leg to stand on by using it as an example when the problem is still growing in your state despite the government coming in and telling landowners that they have to fight the problem.

Double Naught Spy,

The issue is the animals must be taken live. I'm not sure how wary hogs are of traps, but based on the fact someone isn't making a ton of money trapping them and bringing them to market leads me to believe taking hogs live is easier said than done.
Click to expand...

LOL, let me quote myself here from a few posts ago...
There is a very good market for feral hog meat and we have inspection and buying facilities all over the state for LIVE hogs. Hogs are considered to be livestock and regulated as such when it comes to the sale or distribution for public consumption. The animals must be first inspected before slaughter and afterwards just like farm pigs and cattle.
Click to expand...

As thallub noted, people certainly can make money on trapping hogs. My tenant's son put himself through college trapping hogs.

Getting back to the poison issue, sodium nitrate would have been a much better way to go, could have used the same feeders, would work faster, and pose much less risk to the environment, but somehow Warfarin got approved first and Sid Miller is running with it.
 
You can easily get them to avoid a particular piece of property, at least temporarily, but that only becomes someone else's problem.
 
IMHO, one of the biggest deterrents to eliminating wild hogs is the money/enjoyment some folks make from the hunting of them. Many areas have wild hogs only because somebody introduced them to the area in the first place in order to hunt them. While there are farmers that are severely impacted from the damage feral hogs inflict, there are neighbors that are making a living off guiding or leasing land for folks to hunt those same hogs. While one wants all of 'em eliminated in the area, the other wants as many as possible in the same area. We have a similar problem here in Wisconsin with Whitetail deer. Dairy farmers work their tails off to produce high quality alfalfa, corn and soybeans. Those farmers with the best alfalfa end up with the most deer in their fields every night. Problem is, their farms are surrounded by recreational land that other folks bought for the sole purpose of hunting deer. While the farmer wants the deer gone, those folks surrounding him work hard to make their properties "sanctuaries" for the most deer they can and allow only a few animals to be killed every year. Regardless of what the farmer does on his property to control the deer, has little or no effect on the number of animals in the area. Seems to be the same "catch 22" farmers/land owners have in areas where feral hogs are present. Until there is unlimited access for hunters in the whole area, or there are impregnable boundaries to areas where hogs are not wanted, there needs to be other methods to controlling them besides hunting. Period.
 
Old Stony said:
I think that some folks might have some wrong impressions about Texas and hog hunting, compared to other states. The people here that have made a business out of charging to hunt their properties are a very small percentage compared to the actual volume of land in Texas. Businesses generally high fence their property and put exotics or other game animals within their perimeters to charge for. Barring any accidental escape of the animals, they are contained on these properties and escapes are rare as these businessmen have some pretty large investments in the animals.
I see a lot of reference on here about hunting private lands and landowners not being hunter friendly...and it's not any different than other states in this regard. I grew up hunting in pheasants and ducks in Nebraska, deer and antelope in Wyoming, etc... In all cases I have found you need to establish a relationship of sorts with landowners so they know you will respect their property and not cause other problems for them. If you just stop near a house on a farm in Nebraska and ask if you can hunt their cornfields, beetfields, etc., chances are if you don't get really lucky, they will turn you down. Would you let strangers get out and stomp your crops down just to be friendly?
Just a guess on my part, but I would have to say probably 999 landowners out of 1,000 are not charging to hunt hogs on their land....they are just protecting their property and chances are local people they are better acquainted with are hunting the property if hunting is taking place there.
Click to expand...
this makes sense, I agree that its not easy getting hunting access on private lands... and also that the majority of private land in Texas is not a hunting ranch. The question I have though is for the private landowners that know they have hogs... Its one thing to turn away a stranger, but I would think it would be easy to find someone they know (and thus trust) that hunts to get rid of them?

there is a catch 22 to this situation we havnt brought up yet.... the goal is to eradicate the hogs completely, yet hunters love the idea of having them to hunt. Depending on the size of the private property it might not be such a big deal to have a few hogs around.
 
Double Naught Spy said:
As far as helihunting goes, they kill more hogs than just about anybody. I have talked with operators of several heli-hunt services. They are usually booked up weeks in advance. Their biggest problem are hunts cancelled due to bad weather and the client gets mad because it may be 3-6 weeks before there is another opening. The price isn't keeping clients away. You are completely misunderstanding the problem.

You keep wanting to make the hog problem a Texas issue, but it really isn't. Until your state wins the war on hogs, you don't have a leg to stand on by using it as an example when the problem is still growing in your state despite the government coming in and telling landowners that they have to fight the problem.
Click to expand...

thats a fair point, I can agree with that. Your right Oregon's hogs are growing not shrinking... thinking about this the hog populations here are sheltering primarily on private lands, so thinking about this its not any different than the problem in Texas. Thank you for this perspective.
 
My ONLY concern with poisoning them, would be the risk to other animals than the targeted hogs. I believe that's why poisoning is illegal in most places.

there is a catch 22 to this situation we havn't brought up yet.... the goal is to eradicate the hogs completely, yet hunters love the idea of having them to hunt. Depending on the size of the private property it might not be such a big deal to have a few hogs around.
Click to expand...

Some friends of mine are property owners in Texas, and have had hog problems, all hogs are problems for them because they use their property for agricultural purposes, in other words; to earn a living.

I have been invited and went on two coordinated hog kills in the last several years, I (and others) did this at our own cost, I took the time off from work, travel expenses, ammunition, ...etc, I did not really have to cover living expenses as they put us up on their land for several days. There is no choosing big, small, male, female hogs to "harvest" like a hunter, they are dealt with as they should be; a harmful and invasive species. One of the sisters in the family arranges for the hogs to be donated to various takers. Lets just say I lived up to my nickname "Deadeye" and earned a new one "Baby-Killer" on these hog kills, yes they are hog kills; NOT hog "hunts".

More recently they have come up with a way to contain the hogs in larger numbers in "area traps" or "corral traps" that the hogs are not smart enough to recognize as traps, even once trapped they may not really recognize it until they run out of food and water or the bullets start flying. I believe they have hired this out to a company that does this trapping for them now, and the hogs are taken by the hired company.

I can also tell you that they have been approached by "outfitters" wanting to capitalize on their hog problem by offering them a cut of the hunt fees to access their land and hog problems, the one offer I specifically know of was not well received at all, as they don't want to mix their agricultural business with a cottage industry of "hog huntin". I also seriously doubt that fees gained from hog hunters can offset the money they stand to lose from the loss of part of their land to agricultural use.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top