The feral hog population is exploding across the U.S. and I saw this opinion posted in the New York Times. All in all a good discussion of the problem. I did not realize people trapped these destructive animals and transported them to other areas so they could hunt them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/op...ml?ref=opinion

I've read some information about the new Tennessee laws and they're very confusing. Reading both the obvious and between the lines of this opinion editorial, I see it as blaming hunters and ridiculing Gov. Perry.

Please don't take that editorial at its word. I do not believe that hunters transporting hogs are the cause of the problem.

I just watched a National Geographic special on the subject of feral hogs:

Watch Wild Hog Invasion: Dangerous Encounters Full Length Episodes Online | Free on XFINITY TV

This telecast explains how smart the hogs are (escaping fences and getting around them and under them) and how most are "escaped" farm hogs that go feral in one generation.

The real problem is a four month gestation and litters of 6-8 piglets.

While I mostly agree with mm's assessment of the editorial, there is an element of truth, I believe, in hunters capturing, moving then releasing wild hogs.

Just go to about thread on any forum on wild hogs and you'll see various "how they wish we had a wild hog problem so I could hunt" posts. I don't believe for one second that there aren't so-called hunters that really do that. I also don't believe it's as wide spread or as common as this writer would have us believe. Pigs are pigs and they spread pretty good on their own without help.

I don't know about the cause of the problem elsewhere, but so-called "sportsmen" relocating and releasing the hogs is absolutely the cause of the problem in Middle Georgia. I was born in 1948 on the farm I grew up on. I never saw a feral hog until the early 90s. When deer hunters from Atlanta started leasing large tracts, they decided that their lease would be more useful if there was something to hunt before and after deer season.

I fought a verbal war with hog-doggers on the Georgia Outdoor News Forum for a year or so. None of them would condemn the relocation of feral pigs. They just saw it as a way to gain new hunting grounds. I think at least one state refused to allow a hunting season for feral pigs because the G&F authorities decided the hunters would only make the problem worse.

The hog doggers have absolutely no respect for property rights. Landlines mean absolutely nothing to them. Their excuse is "my dog can't read those posted signs." Apparently, many of them can't read the signs either.

Sportsmanship, fair chase, and humane methods should not be part of the conversation regarding the eradication of feral pigs any more than it is when trying to eradicate roaches or rats. They are vermin, pure and simple. We have discovered that the best way to handle them when we find them in a field is to shoot the sows down first. Then, the pigs don't know which way to run and can be shot while they are milling round the dead sows. Leave a sow standing and she will take off for the woods and the pigs will follow. If it isn't too close to a house, the buzzards and coyotes do a good cleanup job.

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Georgia On My Mind

I hear ya' redlevel,
Some folks around trap em and fatten 'em for table fair. Most people just leave em for the coyotes and buzzards. Hopefully to keep them from killing calves.
IMHO they are, in fact, vermin and very dangerous at that. There are several well documented cases in southeast Texas were children and elderly people have been attacked in their yards. None had pretty endings that I'm aware of.

I've been trapping them for several years, and there's simply no way to keep with the population explosion. The total capture number on our hunting lease is around 100 per year (several people trapping). We find young piglets every time we run our traps. With the wildfires that are destroying all the ranches around us, I hope to see a big decline in the hog numbers. I'd be happy if they all burned.

Just Google from the house here and it's 660 miles to Mineral Wells. Thought I might come out and shoot a few but that a little far for a weekend.

What do you boys in Texas use on them pigs?

My daughter used a .308 on this big old hog. But....she had my 44 Magnum as a back-up.

I own some property in south central MO. It is halfway between Steeleville, MO and Salem, MO on Hwy 19. Not far from Cherryville. Some of you guys might know where it is.

Never have seen a hog on the place but a neighbor within a mile lets a guy hunt on him and he said the guy got some hogs on a game cam. This about a year and a half ago. Last week a neighbor down there said he knows a guy around Ironton, MO (about 60 miles) that has killed 36 hogs on his place this summer.

On the way home last Sat (St Louis via 44) I saw a dead feral hog (black) on the highway between mile marker 141 and 142 E bound towards St Louis. They're comin.............can't stop 'em.

We get a few every now and then. The deer hunters will shoot them on sight. They make good sausage when mixed with venison. When we start to have a problem with them somewhere there are plenty of volunteers to take them out. I like the pigs 30 lb. and under. Split them down the middle and slow smoke them.

"However politically advantageous mixing helicopters and guns may be, what we might call the Perry/Barr approach to wild pigs won’t work. To solve America’s feral hog problem, we need to get down at ground level and pursue the slow, patient work of education and rational persuasion. "

I tried it once; the pig totally ignored me.

Me too. Over a nice roasted fire and barbeque sauce. But I would love to hunt one or two or five. They were discovered here in WA state a few years ago but Fish & Game immediately wiped them out. But every hunter in the state was chopping at the bit to get at them. Imagine 18K hunters going after a handful of pigs.

Absolutely. I see a lot of torn up areas the size of houses where I bird hunt, both in the mountains and down south. I've had a few run ins with the dogs but nothing bad so far. Pigs are smart and they usually avoid us before we get to them.

They are certainly destructive creatures--I'm a bird hunter and can't imagine there's much more a pig would rather find than a nest full of eggs on the ground--that's quail and grouse to me.

Redlevel is right, and Georgia does not exactly make it easy to hunt them on public land. You have to use small game weapons unless it's big game season and you can't bait them. As far as I'm concerned when deer season is out anything should go as far as killing these pests.

Some years back I read an article about the problem in the Smoky Mountain Nat. Park--they said that they are trapping 6-800 per year and are nowhere near getting ahead of the problem.

Multiple litters per year, smart as or smarter than a dog, better nose than a dog, great hearing, all make for an animal that is going to be hard to eradicate.

Two issues to add to previous posts. A big part of the problem is the fact that Russian boar brought in for hunting clubs in the 60s and 70s have crossed into the feral pig population in the south. This has led to a much more invasive and aggressive hog population.

Trapping instead of shooting is used because they are not always causing a problem where it is safe to shoot. Also, if you want to sell the meat for restaurants or other commercial uses, the pigs have to be slaughtered in a USDA inspected facility.

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Revolver luvin' Mountaineer

The same with the Alabama Fish and Game people. They swear up and down that they want feral hogs in Alabama GONE!

However, Alabama Wildlife Mgmt Areas don't allow hog hunting unless their is some other hunting season going on and then you can only use what's legal for that game. for example, deer guns during deer season (about 1 week vs. 72 days for the rest of the state), squirrel guns during squirrel season etc. They do have a special 2 week hog hunt, but then they restrict the areas on a daily basis (one week on one side of the WMA, then the other week on the other side of WMA).

Idiocy

IF they really want the hogs gone, then they need to go to an almost 365 day per year hunting season in the WMAs, like the rest of the state.

The NYT article is a surprise. I would not have expected a NYT article on hog hunting to be so even handed. It was a surprise. Now I doubt feral hogs are going to show up anytime soon in NYC or Boston or Washington, D.C., but in many areas they are a real problem. In my area that are trapped and hunted aggressively. In size they are not usually whoppers... maybe 125 lbs. or so, but from time to time the spawn of Hogzilla shows up! When the dogs corner a nice big hog... 250 lbs. or more, it really gets your blood pumping. My identical-twin brother (deceased) used to love to hunt them with a .44 Mag. (S&W 29-2). I have used a 12 ga. but prefer my beloved M-1 Garand (SA 5.9 [2-56]). If using dogs, a small caliber pistol is fine. I've got a church member who uses a .22 LR revolver. I'd prefer at least a .38/.357 revolver. We've also used AR-15's simply because the shooting can get fast.

In my area, we hunt them on foot with dogs. It is something else to go running through the swamps, etc. following the dogs chasing hogs. Some folks with land also trap them. But they certainly don't transport them anywhere except to the game hoist and then the freezer. But as to hogs spreading, that is certainly correct. I've got a church member who runs a nursery. Recently she and her sons shot 22 hogs that were messing up her nursery stock. That's the most I've ever seen shot all at once.

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A lot of the hogs we trap have the Russian Boar gene in them. You can tell by looking at the lower jaw teeth. If there is any Russian Boar gene present, there will be one extra (very very tiny) tooth directly behind the lower tusk. also, the hair is often very long, thin and coarse. Very dangerous animal.

should you need another hunter...please let me know...i have hunted them many times...

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KK4EMO

In Tennessee the same deal seems to be going on. New laws to limit hog hunting while the problem grows bigger. It's not because hunters are moving the hogs, it's because the hogs are mulitiplying so fast and moving for more food.

An open season would seem to be the answer. Money from hunting licenses and then the hunters pay for their own ammo to take out the hogs.

Mine made mighty fine breakfast sausage!

Hunting isn't going to help. They have to be exterminated. I'm not talking about you, kennyb, but the usual reaction I get on the GON forum is something like, "You complain about hogs, but you won't let us hunt them." Again, not talking about you, but many of these folks just want a free place to hunt. I don't need hunters, I need someone willing to shoot down hogs, from 15 lbs to 300 lbs, just as long as there are targets. Most hunters don't want to do that. A common complaint is that it is a sin to waste all that meat. Have you ever tried to give away six or seven dead hogs late on an August afternoon when it is 98 degrees? The helicopter videos are bad public relations, but this kind of extermination is the only thing that is going to work. I would like to see the state put a bounty on them, something like $5 for every fresh pig tail, or set of ears brought in.

The last thing needed is to give them game animal status. That would bring on talk of management, etc. Deer are bad enough. If, when you say 'open season', you mean 12 months, day or night, no limit, then I agree. And whether you want to believe it or not, hunters, especially dog hunters, actively engage in the illegal transportation and relocation of feral hogs.

This is the kind of shooting it takes.
JAGER PRO

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Georgia On My Mind