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History shows the lineage of hogs were here before the invasive species called “Texans” !

Just deer feeders every ten acres.

Yes but no. There are so many acorns and pecans left on the ground each year left by all of the species. The feeders are just a snack.

I’d be the first to ask a dirty sodbuster in Texas when they or their families arrived as an invasive species.

Leave the damn pigs alone !

Are these the same "researchers" that claimed cows are magnetic?

Satellite photos taken early in the day showed cows oriented north and south.
(Seems it never occurred to them solar gain might figure into the equation!)

How is that even a question?

I've been expecting that.

I’m not convinced they’ll establish themselves in an area with winter and heavy hunting hunting pressure.

It’a always well Alaska or some remote part Canada had a population but they died off after a hard winter, it’s never we can’t rid of them here in (pick a Midwestern state) and until they are causing wide spread problems on a cold stage I won’t believe it’s going to happen.

Even areas like Tennessee and Missouri don’t really have large populations.

Yep, and wolves and lions and coyotes only eat the old and weak and sick and slow.

And Gator gar only eat rough fish.

Hogs ARE invasive, and feeders make up a large part of all wildlife diet. No feeders, no hogs.

Not when "the fittest" is an invasive species, for sure. It has been 35 years since I was in the range management field and I do not recall the precise definition of "ecological condition," but I do believe that it is essentially a figure of merit based on how much of the original, natural plant composition of an area remains.

Thoroughly incorrect. Hogs have been here in this country a helluva lot longer than feeders have been in use. Feeders do not sustain wildlife, they manipulate their movement patterns.

Well. . . . Not all the time.
A place I hunted years ago southeast of Sonora, just
about midway between Sonora and the
Sutton/Edwards county line was poor poor poor,
and if it wasn't for the feeders, there probably
wouldn't be much of any whitetail deer at all.
A few scraggly oaks and mesquites, and the
odd prickly pear was about it. The landowner
had inherited the place and barely fed his cows
and goats, and if a rare blade of grass popped
up or an acorn or mesquite pod fell, there was
an animal standing right there to gobble it up.
The "nice" bucks were like some of the old
tweeker buck pencil racks that were around
when I started hunting in the 70's.
Anything with a thumb sized main beam was
a monster.
If it wasn't for the mountains of corn the
deer lease members distributed, it would
have been a total bust. I don't remember anybody
ever seeing a pig , only the rare javelina.
Very few of those.

As far as in know, we don’t have established populations here. I have heard the reports of them coming down to ND and MT from Canada, but not sure that I believe they have much of or any population up there.

How do they fair in black bear country? Doesn’t seem like they would have much for natural predators in TX. They would have to be a boon for grizzlies and wolves if they ever got established in those areas.

They are native to Europe - the natural predators there would have been wolves and brown bears.

That area is known for having anthrax wipe out 95% of the deer during an outbreak as well.

After an anthrax die off, deer can be scarce as hen's teeth. And about the time they get a decent population established, anthrax rears it's ugly head again and kills them off.

Do cougars eat them? Seems like they would.

There's more hogs than mountain lions.

I'm sure they do though.

And vice versa.

I've seen first hand if you have a mountain lion caught in a trap, you'd better beat the hogs to it, or all you'll find is a bag of bones in the middle of a pile of fur.

Coyotes eat the piglets as they can. If often works in our favor, if we can find a sow with tiny ones and kill her, then whatever of the little ones I can't kill, probably 50% or more disappear. Its a start at least.

Maybe thats why I tend to give coyotes somewhat of a pass. I"ve seen them come through with a piglet in their mouth more than once.

Hill country. That now has less whitetails than it had many years ago. Too many other animals to compete.

Its not always a negative in some ways. OTOH I'm a firm believer that if it was meant to be here they God would have placed it here. And folks importing stuff are just stupid and it will bite one sooner or later.

Same goes for genetically modified food just for greed. Its all for greed actually.

We are actually happy now that we have our pasture back to mostly native grass also. But I digress.

Now. How do you cook carp to eat? Gar are good. Buffalo ok. But carp taste muddy to me like bad crawfish.

Thats so far from the truth. Hogs eat other than feeder stuff most of their lives. They won't even touch feeders when other food is around and thats most of the year. You can MAKE them dependant on a feeder depending how you do it, but naturally they dont' rely on feeders.