Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Good News (?) For All Who Complain About The Cost of Hog Hunting in Texas

From this morning's Houston Chronicle:

Texas has long faced the destruction feral hogs can have on land and wildlife. Now feral hogs' rampant damage is stretching as far north as Canada, with particularly prominent populations in U.S. northern border states, including Montana and North Dakota, the New York Times reports.

"In the past 30 years, the hogs have expanded their range to 38 states from 17," according to the Times.

And this spread isn't natural, it's being caused by people, scientists explain. Dale Nolte, manager of the feral swine program at the Department of Agriculture, told the outlet that there's "every reason to believe they are being moved in the backs of pickup trucks and released to create hunting opportunities.”

While Texas has developed creative hunting practices to stave off the swine epidemic, from air balloon strikes to the "HeliBacon," a helicopter that can be chartered for pricey hog-hunt excursions. However, for some states, hunting creates an incentive for hosting hog populations rather than a solution.

In those places, "people to distribute feral pigs for sport," the Times explains. "Hunting makes the animals warier and scatters sounders, or family groups, which go on to multiply in new family groups."

The swine have been capable of surviving the extreme winters in northern states and have been steadily multiplying. Their effects have not yet been as carefully documented as they are in the south. What experts do know is that state officials should plan to contain hog populations sooner rather than later.

This rings especially true and urgent in recent months.

These hogs are not typically known to be predatory, but a November encounter proved deadly for a woman in Anahuac, Texas. Christine Rollins was found dead with animal bites on her body. The Jefferson County Coroner's Office determined it was a feral hog assault that caused Rollin's death. However, that's an extreme and rare example of what these swine can do. If they cause human casualties it's usually by spreading disease through contaminated waters, including E. coli outbreaks in produce.

It's more common that the invasive species attacks ecosystems rather than people. They destabilize habitats and ravage private properties, agricultural crops — to the tune of $52 million in one recent finding —and wetlands by trampling on them. Even worse, they breed quickly. Their gestation period is roughly 120 days and they can breed as young as six months old.

Because of their negative effects on the environment and on communities, officials in The Woodlands — where this issue is particularly pronounced — are hosting an educational seminar on Feb. 20 at Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), 8801 Gosling Road, in The Woodlands. The lecture will discuss how to tackle the growing problem and will feature guest speaker Chris Watts, a wildlife damage management biologist with the Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension and the Texas Wildlife Services Program.

So, what should the non-hog states do? Establish seasons on the relatively non-existent hogs and charge a huge fee for licenses to make hunting them unattractive?

One more thing for the NY times to get wrong. Havent heard of a single instance of feral hogs in Montana, or north dakota.

Maybe somebody else has...

Oh, man. We are overrun with em!

I charge 1000 bucks an hour to hunt em.

I've heard rumors of them (wild boars actually) escaping game farms in Canada and ending up in either the Pembina Gorge or Turtle Mountains. However, I've never seen one, known or talked with anyone who's seen one, and haven't seen any game-camera pictures of them being circulated either.

? ? ? ?

" Good News " ? per the cost of hog hunting in Texas. ?????

I didn't read anything about a LOW license fee or a FREE feral hog hunting season in Texas.
I know, I know, it's not the TGFD it's the landowners. WELL.......

I understand YOUR ? in the OP.

The essence of that " Houston Chronicle " article is Talk, Talk, Talk.


IF the Texians seriously wanted to reduce or eradicate feral hogs >>> QUIT charging an outrageous $$$$$$.


Alright Texians -- FLAME on. I can take it. Get Real or SHUT UP.

Jerry --> an Arkansan close enuff to help IF you are serious.

I have heard of hunting clubs buying breeding age hogs taking out the ear tags and releasing them here in Pa. hoping to replace low deer population numbers with another animal for hunting opportunities . Here in the mountains of north central Pa. the bear population would seem to have kept numbers in check though. I'm on fence about the right and wrong of it, as I can see both sides of the issue. BUT IMHO the PGC is partially at fault for it themselves as they have lowered deer numbers in most of the state to the point hunters are frustrated with hunting entire season and seeing a handful of deer.

As of 2015....

Begs the question, "just how bad do ranchers in general really want the hogs gone?" On one hand they complain of out of control damage but on the other are more than happy to ask scalpers price to hunters that would like to hunt them.

I live next to one of the largest ranches in our county. For years the owner never would let me hunt over there because it was "Leased". Recently he has been begging me to shoot the hogs in the pasture behind my house. I would too, but they are only back there at 2 - 3 am, causing the neighbors dogs to bark incessantly, then retreat to the bayou where I'm not allowed. From what I can see, they are really tearing up his place. Let him spend some of his "Leased" money on fixing the problem.

When the whitetail deer population began explode here in the late 1980's, a lot of farmers were claiming crop damage, and I know it did happen, although probably not as much as some of them said. Anyway, the KDFWR's answer was to tell the farmers to allow hunters to come in and kill the deer. That did not suit too well with most farmers, as most of them did not want to open up their land to hunters, unless they knew who it was. I was farming back then, and had experienced some crop damage myself, and being a hunter, I figured if the problem got serious enough, I'd thin the herd out myself.

My point in this.........2 things.......the state's wildlife people look to make money first, and that means that if one wants to hunt, one must pay. Same thing with most landowners, as they are looking for something out it too. Out of state hunters coming into Kentucky and leasing land to hunt on has driven the price of hunting up here, and the days of free hunting are long gone, unless you're lucky enough to have family who own land.

As a landowner, I can't blame someone for making money off their land, as that's their right to do so. BUT......that landowner then should not complain that animals are causing them a problem, when they are making money off that animal. Same way with the state, if they're going to make a big deal out of the damage that hogs are causing, then they need to ease the restrictions on hunting them.

YEP !!

Yep.

A guy here in the Turtles mountains had a fenced in hog hunt area for a while. The natives cut holes in the fences and eventually killed them all. I have never seen a wild hog here in North Dakota. Ed k

In my area we have buy them at least 6 drinks before the hunt....the pigs!

I shoot, trap all I can. They multiply so fast, no way to keep up. Parks and wildlife claims if you have a 100, you have to kill 70 to break even.

This is my favorite pig picture. Ten of these were females.

no hunting license needed to kill them in texas.

It's a tough situation for sure. I don't blame private landowners one bit though for making money on it, and I dang sure wouldn't want the generally idiotic, clueless clowns toting guns to have access to my place if I owned it. You could hire a helicopter and hunt 3 days a week and you wouldn't control the population now. Nothing short of poison will do the trick.

J, I do understand all that.

IF they're serious..... put the poison out. That's a difficult situation to control as well.

Jerry

That just amazes me. Back East, the early farmers/settlers would release hogs, let them reproduce and every now & then round a bunch of them up and drive them into town for slaughter. But the East doesn't have 1/2 the problem with ferals that Texas does. In most of the East, there aren't any. Apparently they were wiped out after the free range days.

Why is it so much harder to get rid of them in Texas?