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What Can Be Done To Curb The Wild Hog Population?
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<blockquote data-quote="beastep" data-source="post: 3062477" data-attributes="member: 41032"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="beastep, post: 3062477, member: 41032"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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