Blimey - Amazing that the numbers are so high, given the number of hunters in the USA.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29747529
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29747529
wild pigs in USA
- Thread starter mrcharly
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We have a few texans on the night vision forum I help to run and one chap once said "yeah come on over guys, we have so many hogs hunting could never put a dent in them"
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One of the problems is that most hunters (recreational hunters) don't target the feral pigs. They are edible but not especially good (wild pig has a strong taste) and they don't make much of a trophy.
That said, there were a around a hundred taken just on the Eglin Military reservation last year (that's just one wildlife management area here in the Panhandle) Florida and many other states have removed all restrictions on hunting them (no bag limits, no closed seasons, no weapons/method restrictions, etc.) And contrary to the article, they do have natural enemies that sometimes prey on them: Bear, cougar, coyote (coyote numbers and range are likewise exploding) wolves, gators. These predators vary by state and TBH they likely don't concentrate on pigs but rather view them as a target of opportunity.
In Texas they're hunted by professionals in helicopters with fully automatic weapons yet their numbers keep increasing.
Don't click if you're squeamish http://youtu.be/zpjfJ138vII
We can't kill them fast enough. Here in southeastern Texas on the coast I've seen a couple of them that are pretty big. There was one that something big had hit and was dead alongside the road south of Victoria, and from the distance it's bloated carcass initially looked like a dead cow. They are a mix of different European domesticated pigs breeds, German wild boar, and Russian wild boar.
In places like the coastal forests of the American east and southeast, the brush can get very thick. Pigs are smart and they learn. Any trick you try only works for a certain period of time then you have to try something else. They are also nocturnal. An entire industry has sprung up around killing pigs, including specialized ammo loads.
However, for those who like a good barbecue, they do offer a lot of meat for the harvesting. It's also neat to have a large and tasty game animal that is open season, 24/7/365, kill them any way you can, no limits, only a general hunting license is needed, and yet, the supply just keeps increasing.
I'm not a farmer or rancher, so I'm not complaining.
In places like the coastal forests of the American east and southeast, the brush can get very thick. Pigs are smart and they learn. Any trick you try only works for a certain period of time then you have to try something else. They are also nocturnal. An entire industry has sprung up around killing pigs, including specialized ammo loads.
However, for those who like a good barbecue, they do offer a lot of meat for the harvesting. It's also neat to have a large and tasty game animal that is open season, 24/7/365, kill them any way you can, no limits, only a general hunting license is needed, and yet, the supply just keeps increasing.
I'm not a farmer or rancher, so I'm not complaining.
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Female pigs I saw on the TV is what we eat, plus male nutered ones. A farmer once told me that his boars that where all intact where ground up into flavouring. So that's half the pigs are useless.
The taste of wild pig and javelina (peccary) both really depend a lot upon how you cook them.
It doesn't make the press as much, but Texas also has a javelina problem.
Americans don't like the strong taste of wild meat that much, but if it's properly field dressed, butchered, and cooked, it's very flavorful, which means it actually has flavor vs what you buy at the supermarket.
Interesting when they said in that BBC video that if we wiped out 75% of the wild pig population they would recover their numbers in a year. That is pretty much the truth.
Here is a Ray Mears video of him roasting a wild pig.
[video=youtube;FbXkvxsubaI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXkvxsubaI[/video]
It doesn't make the press as much, but Texas also has a javelina problem.
Americans don't like the strong taste of wild meat that much, but if it's properly field dressed, butchered, and cooked, it's very flavorful, which means it actually has flavor vs what you buy at the supermarket.
Interesting when they said in that BBC video that if we wiped out 75% of the wild pig population they would recover their numbers in a year. That is pretty much the truth.
Here is a Ray Mears video of him roasting a wild pig.
[video=youtube;FbXkvxsubaI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXkvxsubaI[/video]
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I've had wild pig a couple of times. I really can't imagine any cooking method that would disguise that nasty strong taste. I don't think even a gallon of Tobasco would help.
That said, they are omnivores and I suspect their diet (which will effect their taste) probably varies greatly from one region to another and from one season to another. I also would never dream of eating any hog (wild or domestic) that was killed in any weather other than cold unless it was commercially raised in a controlled, parasite free environment.
That said, they are omnivores and I suspect their diet (which will effect their taste) probably varies greatly from one region to another and from one season to another. I also would never dream of eating any hog (wild or domestic) that was killed in any weather other than cold unless it was commercially raised in a controlled, parasite free environment.
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If you were a farmer or rancher (or just a land owner) you wouldn't even need a license. For that matter, if you just know a land owner you won't need a license. Texas, like most Southern states, doesn't consider them a game animal legaly, but rather the property of the land owner.
Except Javelina are a native species.
In most of Texas, there really isn't a whole lot of places to hunt hogs or deer that isn't on private land. In Texas you need a basic hunting license to hunt hogs unless you are a land owner, or the authorized agent of a land owner, and the hogs are in the process of degrading or damaging your property.
Yes, technically javelina are the 'native' species, pigs are not, but that was then, this is now. Pigs, are now, by default, native to this continent. The feral hogs here are essentially forming their own breed out of the different breeds that they are mixed with. They are here to stay, much in the same way that horses were once here, went extinct, and we reintroduced them.
Yes, technically javelina are the 'native' species, pigs are not, but that was then, this is now. Pigs, are now, by default, native to this continent. The feral hogs here are essentially forming their own breed out of the different breeds that they are mixed with. They are here to stay, much in the same way that horses were once here, went extinct, and we reintroduced them.
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Unless it's changed since I was there the only time you need a license to hunt your own land is if you're hunting migratory birds.
And yeah, I well remember it was hard (but not impossible) to find public hunting land. There was about a thousand acres or two of state owned land about an hour north of Austin (near Georgetown) that was open to the public but almost nobody knew about it. It was limited to archery or shotgun only.
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Yeah, they're here to stay. But that will never make them native. They'll always be detrimental. Likewise with wild horses (they tear up the range and are very destructive) And that's coming from a horse lover.
According to the current state game laws, nowadays in Texas, even on your own land you need a license and any necessary tags unless the animal is question is doing damage to the property.
One of the most accessible public 'lands' here are open waterways, like the bays, estuaries, etc. Once you are away from shore, even if it's ankle deep water, you are hunting on public 'land' for anything in, on, or flying above the water. That is one of the reasons this is a duck hunting mecca. There is also a season for sandhill crane. Crane is some of the better tasting waterfowl.
This area is the nesting ground for the endangered whooping crane which was almost completely wiped out to extinction by the 1940's. It's easy to identify a whooping crane, yet some bonehead shot one for thrills while duck hunting last year. Other hunters who saw him do that called F&G who nabbed him. It even made the local newspapers and people were up in arms. Protecting the whooping crane is something of a sensitive issue locally. If I recall correctly, he was fined about $27,000. That was an expensive shotgun shell.
Pigs, it's not that hard to get permission to go kill some, or just kill one in a ditch or some other inconspicuous place. Killing pigs is really something no one gets bothered about. If F&G sees you with a dead pig, provided that they even bother to ask, they will just want to see a hunting license. I suspect that if they caught you with 1000 dead wild hogs on a semi trailer they would pin a medal on you. I don't even have to shoot them nowadays if I don't want to bother, provided that I don't mind getting up and field dressing a free, freshly killed hog at 2am. I have a friend who is a professional hunter and he has a contract to keep the local airport cleared of feral hogs. He kills scores of them and gets paid to do it. Most of the carcasses typically wind up in the local landfill.
Deer is different. Too many land owners in Texas want righteous dollars now for a deer hunt, but there are places to hunt. For example, north of here is the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and they have regular public hunting seasons for various game like deer and alligator, with all of the pigs you can shoot while you are at it. Or, you can just ram one of them with your car on the way to Walmart. They are everywhere. According to State Farm Insurance, there were an estimated 2.3 million collisions between deer and vehicles in the U.S. between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2010.
Public land in Arizona is a different issue, and I still have a bunch of land there. There is public land literally everywhere in Arizona, and in enormous abundance. Need an impromptu 1000 yard shooting range? "Hey, that looks like a good spot," and just pull off the road a ways and don't shoot towards the road or any distant habitation, if there is any.
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Yeah, I just looked up Texas hunting license requirements. It's changed a bit. Some of the changes for the better is that I don't see any requirement for deer tags anymore? But the prices really suck compared to here. With my retired military status, I get the full Gold Sportsman's License for $20. It covers fishing (freshwater and saltwater) as well as hunting (every species legal) and every stamp/endorsement (archery, primitive firearms, state duck stamp, wildlife refuge, etc.) except the Federal Duck Stamp.
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