Wildlife Services Develops a New Toxin for Feral Swine
Feral swine are one of the most difficult invasive species to eradicate in North America. The pigs (Sus scrofa), first introduced from Europe, are intelligent enough to avoid many traps and can change their behavior to be more evasive and nomadic once they’ve had encounters with hunters.
But researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services are perfecting a poison that’s as basic as bacon for breakfast: salt.
“How it kills the animals is by reducing the ability of the red blood cell to release oxygen to the tissues,” said Kurt VerCauteren, the feral swine project leader for Wildlife Services at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colo. at a presentation at The Wildlife Society’s ongoing annual conference in Winnipeg.
There are a number of toxicants that can be used to kill feral swine, but as of yet none have been registered in the U.S., he said. Techniques currently focus on trapping, relocating, hazing, contraception, killing and snaring. But, VerCauteren has been working with other researchers to develop a toxicant based on sodium nitrate — a kind of salt that, ironically, is sometimes used to preserve pork.
While safe in small quantities, high enough quantities of sodium nitrate can kill anything.
VerCauteren said that using salt in its basic form is relatively cheap, but the researchers have to implement a more expensive process to keep the pigs from smelling trouble. They microencapsulate the salt so that it’s odorless to the swine, yet will still break down in their digestive systems and kill them.
The toxicant has been very effective so far. While initial tests showed an 85 percent mortality, the researchers have improved their technique to kill up to 95-100 percent of the pigs that consume the toxicant.
VerCauteren said they’ve delivered the toxicant to pigs in tests using peanut butter, though they make it look black and dirty in an attempt to “make it as unattractive to other animals as possible.”
And herein lies one of the other challenges. The researchers are working on improving the delivery design to create devices that only feral swine can access.
This proved particularly difficult with crafty racoons (Procyon lotor) — the bigger ones can push open the lids on bait boxes that weigh up to 28 pounds. “There are photos of racoons pushing [the box] like a weight lifter, with another one on top,” VerCauteren said. As a solution, the researchers made the lid weigh more than 30 pounds — a weight that even the biggest raccoon shouldn’t be able to cope with.
While the toxicant shows some promise, VerCauteren said that it will still take around 18 months for the Environmental Protection Agency to review the product. But, if everything goes well, they could be giving feral pigs an overdose of salt in as little as two years.
Ben
Some days it takes most of the day for me to do practically nothing...
Kerr WMA has pens setup to study hog poison. The biologist told me that if they poisoned one pen then none of the hogs in the surrounding pens would eat anything. They're so social that word gets out that they're being poisoned.
For the amount of time and money the .gov is spending on this, a bounty would have been cheaper, just as effective and probably safer for the rest of the wildlife.
Hunting does little to control the overall feral hog population. Drop in the bucket.
Originally Posted by White_Bear
For the amount of time and money the .gov is spending on this, a bounty would have been cheaper, just as effective and probably safer for the rest of the wildlife.
Bounty systems don't usually work either. It sure doesn't with coyotes.
In many parts of the U.S., those trapping large numbers of hogs usually have an outlet to sell them. Some take them to the local livestock auction. They already have a cash incentive.
The new odorless salt APHIS came up with is interesting, but sounds like it could have lots of collateral damage, and they don't have that figured out yet.
I've discussed this at length with Texas Parks & Wildlife personnel. The problem with sodium nitrate is like the first post stated - it will kill about anything that eats enough of it - including humans. I was told about the bait delivery systems with heavy lids, but when I pointed out that hogs are sloppy eaters and would scatter the bait all over the immediate area for other animals to eat, they sadly agreed with me. They also do not know about the danger of predators eating from the carcasses of poisoned hogs (although this might be a "two-fer" with coyotes?).
If the feds would loosen restrictions on meat processing it would create a much bigger market for feral hogs. An animal to be butchered and sold in the US must be inspected - by a Federal Inspector - before and after butchering. Right now it is effectively illegal to sell the meat of a feral hog in the US, the big market for them is export to countries - including Europe - with less restrictive practices.
Personally, I am against poisoning any animals bigger than field rats.
^^^^^ give people $$$ incentive and access and watch the piggies dissappear. Of course money without a real job will bring all the Meth heads out of the woodwork. New problems to follow.
Parents who say they have good kids..Usually don't!
Oh great toxic salt what could possibly go wrong with that.
Originally Posted by rockinbbar
Originally Posted by Archerhunter
The best hog poison is, and always will be, lead.
Hunting does little to control the overall feral hog population. Drop in the bucket.
Originally Posted by White_Bear
For the amount of time and money the .gov is spending on this, a bounty would have been cheaper, just as effective and probably safer for the rest of the wildlife.
Bounty systems don't usually work either. It sure doesn't with coyotes.
In many parts of the U.S., those trapping large numbers of hogs usually have an outlet to sell them. Some take them to the local livestock auction. They already have a cash incentive.
The new odorless salt APHIS came up with is interesting, but sounds like it could have lots of collateral damage, and they don't have that figured out yet.
There are no problems that cannot be resolved by the suitable application of high explosive.
VerCauteren said they’ve delivered the toxicant to pigs in tests using peanut butter, though they make it look black and dirty in an attempt to “make it as unattractive to other animals as possible.”
anthropomorphism at it's finest. It's got to be tough going through life with an IQ lower than a pig.
^^^^^ give people $$$ incentive and access and watch the piggies dissappear. Of course money without a real job will bring all the Meth heads out of the woodwork. New problems to follow.
VerCauteren said they’ve delivered the toxicant to pigs in tests using peanut butter, though they make it look black and dirty in an attempt to “make it as unattractive to other animals as possible.”
anthropomorphism at it's finest. It's got to be tough going through life with an IQ lower than a pig.
NWA seems pretty happy.
The only thing worse than a liberal is a liberal that thinks they're a conservative.
I've discussed this at length with Texas Parks & Wildlife personnel. The problem with sodium nitrate is like the first post stated - it will kill about anything that eats enough of it - including humans. I was told about the bait delivery systems with heavy lids, but when I pointed out that hogs are sloppy eaters and would scatter the bait all over the immediate area for other animals to eat, they sadly agreed with me. They also do not know about the danger of predators eating from the carcasses of poisoned hogs (although this might be a "two-fer" with coyotes?).
If the feds would loosen restrictions on meat processing it would create a much bigger market for feral hogs. An animal to be butchered and sold in the US must be inspected - by a Federal Inspector - before and after butchering. Right now it is effectively illegal to sell the meat of a feral hog in the US, the big market for them is export to countries - including Europe - with less restrictive practices.
Personally, I am against poisoning any animals bigger than field rats.
That's what makes the whole cycle so hard to stop. It really is economics 101 in action.
A bigger market will in turn create a bigger demand. When the folks that are ultimately supplying that market for profit find their supply dwindling what's the next thing they do? They start restocking their inventorys. In this case, it's transporting pigs back into the areas they control, regardless of the legality's in doing so.
Then it's back to square one, or is often case now, pigs showing up in more areas by unnatural population expansions due to illegal restocking efforts by the folks with a monetary interest in the game.
VerCauteren said they’ve delivered the toxicant to pigs in tests using peanut butter, though they make it look black and dirty in an attempt to “make it as unattractive to other animals as possible.”
anthropomorphism at it's finest. It's got to be tough going through life with an IQ lower than a pig.
NWA seems pretty happy.
Sad thing is, To many of them probably smile all the way to the voting booth....
A bigger market will in turn create a bigger demand. When the folks that are ultimately supplying that market for profit find their supply dwindling what's the next thing they do? They start restocking their inventorys. In this case, it's transporting pigs back into the areas they control, regardless of the legality's in doing so.
I don't think that will happen. I'd bet that it's easier and cheaper to pen-raise pigs and more profitable to supply the domestic market.
I've discussed this at length with Texas Parks & Wildlife personnel. The problem with sodium nitrate is like the first post stated - it will kill about anything that eats enough of it - including humans. I was told about the bait delivery systems with heavy lids, but when I pointed out that hogs are sloppy eaters and would scatter the bait all over the immediate area for other animals to eat, they sadly agreed with me. They also do not know about the danger of predators eating from the carcasses of poisoned hogs (although this might be a "two-fer" with coyotes?).
If the feds would loosen restrictions on meat processing it would create a much bigger market for feral hogs. An animal to be butchered and sold in the US must be inspected - by a Federal Inspector - before and after butchering. Right now it is effectively illegal to sell the meat of a feral hog in the US, the big market for them is export to countries - including Europe - with less restrictive practices.
Personally, I am against poisoning any animals bigger than field rats.
That's what makes the whole cycle so hard to stop. It really is economics 101 in action.
A bigger market will in turn create a bigger demand. When the folks that are ultimately supplying that market for profit find their supply dwindling what's the next thing they do? They start restocking their inventorys. In this case, it's transporting pigs back into the areas they control, regardless of the legality's in doing so.
Then it's back to square one, or is often case now, pigs showing up in more areas by unnatural population expansions due to illegal restocking efforts by the folks with a monetary interest in the game.
There are legitimate reasons to have meat inspected.
Look up HogGone or something to that effect. The first guys to use it were the Austrlians and they have a lot of experience with it. They have almost as big a feral hog problem as we do.
From the things I have read the sodium nitrate does not biologically magnify so down stream scavengers shouldn't be a problem. However as always and granted Aus. doesn't have racoons, the EPA etc. have to study it to death before anything can be used.
