What Can Be Done To Curb The Wild Hog Population?

[Coach_1]

Well thats stupid.

I agree. You can’t hunt them unless you are the landowner. So no lease hunters or public land hunters can harvest any basically.

 

[beastep]

Because you are cutting the people allowed to kill them by what, 75%? Thats stupid if you want to keep the population from exploding.

 

[CHenry]

Because you are cutting the people allowed to kill them by what, 75%? Thats stupid if you want to keep the population from exploding.

Also cutting the importation of hogs by what...100%

 

[tRidiot]

Because you are cutting the people allowed to kill them by what, 75%? Thats stupid if you want to keep the population from exploding.

I love how they tell you how stringent they are about not letting you hunt them, then they proudly list all the counties they can be found, including your best shot at finding them.

Weird to anyone else? lol

 

[dennishoddy]

Take a look at what Kansas does.

http://www.huntwildpig.com/state-specifics/kansas/

I can't confirm the validity of this, but it's widely said that the pig population on the north end of Kaw lake that borders Kansas was started by Kansas hunters bringing them in and releasing because they can't hunt them on their WMA's.
May be total BS, but that is the story going around.
They do a pretty good job controlling them with fly over shooting, but once they get there, they are there permanently.
Neighbors adjacent to the kaw wma trap a lot too.

 

[1mathom1]

I don't see it as being stupid on Kansas' part. My buddy that's in Kansas says the published theory is this...as long as there is sport hunting, hog populations will actually be encouraged to expand. Get rid of the sport and allow only eradication/depredation killing and there's a chance of pulling populations back. Dennis' comments about what's happening up at Kaw support this. Farmers and ranchers don't stand a chance in getting rid of them as long as there are guides that make money off of them and hunters that just have to hunt them and could not careless about land owners. Even some land owners don't really want them gone where hunting them brings in more money than they could make off the land if the pigs were gone.

 

[CHenry]

Transporting live ferrill hogs would need to be added to the law as a no-no.

 

[makeithappen]

Remove the ability to sell / move live hogs. That's one of the biggest problems. Hog doggers simply push the hogs around in my opinion.

I'll say publicly that thunderbird is ****ed. Hogs started in 4 years ago. You can't hunt them with anything other than archery and only during deer season. After duck season, you can't have a method of take with you while on the wma and a CCL isn't allowed to be used as a method of take unless you are in a threatened situation. Meaning you can't go out with just a CCL, looking for hogs, find them them claim defense, just because. Provided you can't bait public land, they can't be trapped, so thunderbird is a lost cause to hogs at this point.

 

[Okie4570]

I don't see it as being stupid on Kansas' part. My buddy that's in Kansas says the published theory is this...as long as there is sport hunting, hog populations will actually be encouraged to expand. Get rid of the sport and allow only eradication/depredation killing and there's a chance of pulling populations back. Dennis' comments about what's happening up at Kaw support this. Farmers and ranchers don't stand a chance in getting rid of them as long as there are guides that make money off of them and hunters that just have to hunt them and could not careless about land owners. Even some land owners don't really want them gone where hunting them brings in more money than they could make off the land if the pigs were gone.

Oklahoma, being a prime example of this.

 

[beastep]

Also cutting the importation of hogs by what...100%

You guys are thinking this whole importation thing happens a lot more than it does. If the hogs are already there to hunt then there is no need to import them.

Lets just use me as an example. I been hunting them hard for over 15 years and mostly on my home range. I use dogs and knife, guns, and traps. I been trapping since before you could buy a pig trap. I built the first one in the area and the Noble Foundation wanted to come and look at it. They said it would never catch a pig by the way. I been to all the seminars I could go to on them and have studied them quite a bit more than any other game animal. I live on a farm/ranch that I own part of and I grew up here. I have seen this place go from no pigs to a lot of pigs over the years. I only tell you guys this to better explain who I am and that I see it from both sides as a hunter and a farmer.
Now, in those years I have killed well over 1000 pigs, mostly here but also other places and mostly in Garvin Co. Over the years everything has gone up except my paycheck. Gas, corn, bullets, dog food, vet bills, even the dogs themselves. It got to the point it was a big chunk of my money being a single dad. So a few years ago I started selling to hunting ranches. I get a 200lb pig down I can throw it in a pen for a few days until I can take him to the ranch and make $100 to help pay for all the before mentioned items. I never made any profit, only enough to help my hobby and some months break even. On real good fall seasons I could use it to help pay for Christmas. But out of those over 1000 pigs I can only think of 3 that I had caught that did escape back into the wild. They escaped on the same land they were caught and it wasnt some pig free environment that because of my escapee, now has pigs. The laws got so strict and ridiculous that it made it impossible for me to make any money back that I was loosing doing what I loved to do. So, I had to quit. Now I still shoot them when I see them and take my girl out to try to shoot one every now and then but Im talking maybe 10-20 instead of the over 75 per year. So taking the sport out of the killing of the pigs pretty much keeps 50+ in the wild that I would have personally killed. And before anybody starts talking about escapes from the hi fence ranches, those guys gave me $.50 per lb of pigs and and if they wrote me a check for $600 in one day they damn sure werent going to let any escape. Plus they are state inspected to very tall standards. And those ranches were established in places that already had pigs.
Thats just my story. But, I know a lot of people that took the same road I did. Most of my hunting associates either quit hunting them all together or backed way off. Add all us up and per year thats a lot of pigs. Now add up all the hunters across the state that did the same and thats a whole lot of pigs left in the wild that otherwise would not have been. Take into consideration that a wild pig reaches sexual maturity at 6 months of age, can have 3 litters per year, and can have up to 12 in a litter. One sow let in the wild can account for a whole lot of now pigs in 2 years time.

I forgot to add, most of the land owners do not know how to correctly trap pigs. They may get a few at first and then end up educating the pigs and they will become trap shy. I go through this every year with my neighbors that set a huge amount of traps and dont know how to correctly run them. Then I all of a sudden have pigs that wont go in my traps. So the land owner only thing is also a bad idea.