Most eastern operations are just a few hundred acres -- less than 1 sq mi, or right around there. Knowing how pigs breed, and how many deer can be carried before it starts to get crowded in the northeastern habitats, it would be hard to imagine a herd of self-sustaining bison, 6 or 7 different kinds of sheep (that aren't interbreeding, btw), and various other 'critters. That's when it hit me that the animals are likely being cycled through the property as hunters show up. I don't know how long the animals are there, but my sense is that it isn't multiple generations... or am I wrong?
That doesn't include Texas ranches that are much, much larger. It really does make the point that Texas operations ARE different from those with much smaller lands. But then, the amount of land required to sustain species can be radically different as well, depending on water, amount of food available, predation, etc.
Operations in the Republic of South Africa that I've hunted are multiples of square miles (25 or 26), with sustained breeding populations. Licensing requires population limits to be consistent with carrying capacity. But numbers are higher than you'd find in deeply wild places. Depending on species, real effort is put in; some species (springbok, for example) don't seem to be managed (whatever is loose). Similarly for bushbuck, and kudu from what I saw...
I'm really not out to bash various operations. The question really is focused on how an operation with just around 1 sq mi *has* to operate? I wonder whether a forester would be able to tell the difference between the impact that a sustaining breeding population of pigs and the pig population that passes through one of these operations?
Dan
Last edited by DanEP; 05/06/07.
