Feral Hog Poisoning in Texas

Texas has a feral hog problem.

The state's agriculture commissioner said Tuesday that he has a solution: a human blood-thinner that proves especially deadly in swine.

Sid Miller, the commissioner, said there is only a “minimal” threat to other animals. Hunters will be able to see that the substance was consumed because the fat will be bright blue, MyStatesman.com reported.

“They’re so prolific, you can’t hardly keep them in check,” Miller told the paper. “This is going to be the hog apocalypse, if you like: If you want them gone, this will get them gone.”

The paper reported that the pesticide used is called “Kaput Feral Hog Lure,” which will be bait laced with warfarin—the human blood thinner.

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State officials have downplayed the threat to other wildlife. But some hunters disagree, and say poison is not a viable option. Hunters in the state have collected more than 12,000 signatures in opposition of the poison.

The report said that Louisiana is considering the poison, but one state wildlife official warned that the crumbs that a hog leaves behind could affect black bears and other animals.

These feral hogs cost the state’s agriculture industry about $50 million a year in damage. The Austin Statesman reported that these hogs were introduced to North America by Spanish settlers who released domestic pigs into the woods to breed.

The state already allows aerial hunting which reportedly results in about 27,000 killed hogs annually.

“We don’t think poison is the way to go,” Eydin Hansen, the vice president of the Texas Hog Hunters Association, told CBSNews.com. He went on to say, “If a hog is poisoned, do I want to feed it to my family? I can tell you, I don’t.”He also mentioned the risks of another animal—like a coyote—eating a dead carcass. “We’re gonna after possible the whole ecosystem.”

Mixed reservations here. I realize I'm in an extreme minority. I don't have any vested financial interest in any agricultural activities other than my garden. Been around wild hogs for almost 40 years. Hunted on family and friends ranches that have had hogs present for decades. And yes, Ive seen all the damage they are capable of committing. I realize they can be a serious environmental and agricultural issue,,,,,, but,,,,,,

I've never considered them a problem. And I've killed many in my back yard.

To me there exist considerable greater environmental and agricultural concerns that wild pigs. Cracker box urban sprawl subdivisions, wildlife habitat, and agricultural land loss bother me more.

I know I'm about to get flamed. But I've gone on the record before that I will take the pigs over people any day!

Flame away!!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^X2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Humans are my least favorite protected species.

There are a lot of pigs in S.Tex. Poison is not the way to get rid of a pig problem.if this stuff will kill a pig it will kill anything that consumes the poison, or eats the pig that consumes the poison, I have seen the results of critters eating poisoned cattle and hogs, there will be dead birds, dead coyotes, coons,and other critters including town dogs, laying around close by, poison is not a good idea. Rio7

Curious to know just how much of that $50 Million "agriculture" damage annually is really golf course manager and neighborhood association dictators complaining???

There was a guy in the shop other day who just opened a new water park btwn Austin and Bastrop, complaining about the hogs rooting up his place. Was an old mesquite infested cow pasture, before it was a water park. Dunno where his water comes from. Possibly from one of the several dozen local gravel pits that have destroyed the Colorado river, just across the highway.

FWIW IMO that make 2 for Sid Miller, his botched PR push on the "2 hunters shot by Aliens" story in west Texas that turned into a total cluster and both guys are now charged with felony's for trying to kill each other..and now this thing with Pig Poison...that's gonna wind up killing everything that eats it at some point in the food chain.

Mebbe Sid needs to change his own diet 1st to poisoned Wild Hog meat, so we can see how that works out for him... before we start doing it indescriminatly on a statewide basis.

Yes I've seen miles long strips of hog damage, I saw a dead BIG pig on the hwy last Monday and looked for the wrecked car until I saw the Kenmore bumper sized caved in skull. Here in East Texas this is not new news...but Posioning them??? Nope that ain't gonna do nuthin but create another environmental disaster the size of the State of Texas. Sid...Don't Poop in MY Yard and expect me to thank you.
JMHO & YMMV
Ron

Spreading poison unchecked in the environment is never a good thing. It will affect everything in the ecosystem including humans. What if you ate a hog that had only consumed a little poison? One that wandered 30 miles form the baited ranch so no one would suspect a poisoned hog to be shot?

Too bad Sid Miller was not shot by aliens or space men or whoever.

This in spades. Hasbeen

Will wolves kill them? That'll be the next thing they do. Maybe a bounty on them. I know the buggers tear up everything and I sure don't envy you all that have to live with them.
I have heard of folks using a substance they get at flower shops to kill coyotes and such. It raises blood sugar levels to lethal limits. Not sure if that would work on pigs though. I believe it's the cut flower food but not 100%. I would think that would have less environmental impact if it worked. Hope they can manage something.

Frankly I think it's a horrible idea and hope to heck we don't start doing it here (Florida). But as someone on another forum put it, just as soon as an eagle, Florida Panther, or some other endangered species dies - not to mention someone actually eats a tainted hog and gets sick or dies - that law will change pretty quick.

Just my $.02

RM

I should probably amend my statement below;

"To me there exist considerable greater environmental and agricultural concerns that wild pigs. Cracker box urban sprawl subdivisions, wildlife habitat/agricultural land loss, and Ag Comm SID MILLER bother me more."

This.

The collateral damage risk is just too high.

I knew this from when they first started doing the studies.

Firmly believe the "fix" is more problematic than the problem.

For some insight from folks in Texas who are in the middle of this questio, you might try pulling up "Texas Hunting Forum, scroll down and look for the " Hog & Javelina" board, and read RexMitchell's thread. Lots of info from mfg'ers on the use of several drugs. too.

This is NOT gonna go away anytime soon, and the vagaries of application with the product in question scare the bejesus out of me since I have 4 heart stents and a lifetime scrip of Plavix, an anti clotting agent to protect...so all of a sudden this Poisoning Hog thing has gotten real up close and personal.

IMO PLUS the killing and diposition of the hog's carcass is pretty much fixin to be a SSS proposition, with the possible legal ramifications involved.
Ron

I've been telling Texas Parks & Wildlife Directors for several years that I did not think poison was a good idea. I'll be seeing them again Friday at the Texas Outdoor Writer's Association Conference, and I'll be telling them again. Not that much of anybody cares what I think, though.

Mike

Gotta ask this after another thread that ran earlier. If the hogs are such a problem, and I believe they are, why does it cost so darn much to hunt them?

Sad. I raised a family on venison and wild hogs. Always considered wild Hogs manna from
Heaven. Personally speaking, I rather have two plump 30 pound shoats slow cooking on the pit that 200 pounds of venison in the freezer. JMHO.

Sounds like a bad idea. Poison the pigs and you poison the predators and scavengers too. Not to mention anybody who eats them.

Because some people are willing to pay so much to hunt them.

Thats what I figured, let the market set prices. But why don't some landowners offer baited stands at cheaper prices? Get someone to pay you a few bucks to shoot your problem. Or would the hogs wise up, and the whole dealing with people thing, become too much trouble. We had a small batch get started here, people were shooting the crap out of them. Then the PGC brought in trappers and banned hunting them. I am very cynical of the PGC, but I have not seen or heard of the hogs for a good while.

Personally, I won't pay to hunt hogs and to date, haven't paid to hunt deer except the annual public hunting permit costs, license and typical travel expenses. I'd prefer folks weren't willing to pay so much to hunt hogs or anything else for that matter. But they do and so it goes. There are landowners that will allow hunting on their property, especially for hogs. Trouble is, the trust factor. It's so much easier if they know you or someone they know can vouch for you. Too many will litter, leave gates open, shoot livestock, damage fences, invite others not authorized, etc. Rotten apples always spoil the barrel.

Frankly, the occasional hunter doesn't control much population given the rate sows spit out piglets. Trapping is probably one of the best ways to really work it. Thinking from the landowner's point of view, a more effective hunting solution might be to bring a large group of hunters and do a thorough, organized drive hunt. Especially, if the hogs are bedded down on their property and not just coming there to feed.

There are other ways to reduce them substantially if they are being a problem. The issue is that most landowners that want them gone now aren't willing to do the work. They want to take a pill and make the problem go away. It sums up society in general as a whole in this 21st century.

All the reasons you stated above plus. We live in a law suit society. A lot of ranchers have been burnt by law suits. Cost of insurance alone is a factor. Most large ranches require the people who lease the property to have insurance. Hasbeen

Back in the day, cotton farmers had access to Timik, a potent organophosphate poison that was deadly on 'yotes, hogs, gators, buzzards, etc. It caused critters to foam at the mouth and choke on their secretions. The antidote is atropine, which dries up the secretions. Timik is now hard to get, is a controlled substance.

I don't think nitrite hangs around in the tissue. It affects the hog's blood, making methemaglobin which the hog can't metabolize very well. Their organs smother becaue hemaglobin in replaced by methemagloving, oxygen starving tissues and they die. Other critters aren't as sensitive to nitrites as hogs.

Nitrites, ironically, are used in curing bacon. Ingested by a hog, nitrites will "cure their bacon" before their bacon gets cured...

DF

A couple of cheap/poor Yankees in Texas will cause more problems than it will fix.

The local newspaper, the Palestine Herald-Press www.palestineherald.com, runs an Outdoor column sometimes on Wednesdays ... and the subject today was Hogs, from several authors on the Farm & Ranch Page.

Great pictorial article by Adam Russell of Texas A&M AgriLife dept, [email protected] goes into some detail of how to best to trap hogs. A pair of pics by Dr Billy Higgenbotham of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service shows a teardrop trap pen and explains how to catch whole sounders at a time, that I've never seen discussed before, and how & when to best use it from year to year as a permanent fixture.

Hogs is a HOT topic right now in Texas, and elswhere too I'm sure.
Ron

From the landowner's perspective, free access to your land by the public can be a bigger problem than hogs...

Landowners react from past experiences, nothing happens in a vacuum...

Just saying.

DF

I tend to agree with Kaywoodie. Lots of other problems the Ag commissioner needs to worry about first.

I would probably feel different if I made my living planting row crops or running a golf course that was getting rooted up; but I've lived all my 40 years around feral hogs and just never felt they were that much of a problem. They will root up some pasture but not a whole lot past that as at least in our area they tended to stay in the lower river bottoms where there wasn't much going on other than hunting and fishing.

As to why landowners don't offer free/cheaper hog hunts, I've never had a hog leave beer cans on the ground, gates open so cows could get out or shoot up things they weren't supposed to but I've had guests do all of those things.

In large part, Kaywoodie, I agree with you. I live in Oklahoma and we have feral hogs as well. The hogs are destructive and create issues but I am not in favor of poisoning as there are too many unintended consequences as a result. We don't open the ranch to hunters for reasons like have been described above. I'll deal with the hog issue as it occurs and enjoy shooting them when given the opportunity.

Well, this morning I had a chance to talk to Dave Morrison, Wildlife Division Deputy Director of Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept. He is not totally in favor of poisoning hogs, either, and says it isn't yet a done deal. TPWD is still investigating Sodium Nitrite, and he has no more information on the Warferin poison than anybody else watching the news right now. There is supposed to be a big meeting in Alabama soon with the people who make and sell it, so more info should be out soon.

One thing he did know, is the state of Texas will Not be doing it, and any landowner who wants to use it if it is approved, will have to hire someone licensed to use it - it won't be sold to the general public.

Mike

I would like to kill all on our lease, they root everywhere.

'Hog Apocalypse': Texas Has a New Plan to Kill Feral Pigs

By Craig Hlavaty

The people of Texas are getting a bit more serious about the feral hogs problem plaguing the state.

The nasty swine cost Texans nearly $52 million in damages a year making eradicating them a major issue. Nationally, they cost Americans nearly $1.5 billion.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller approved the use of pesticides this week to aid in the killing of feral hogs, long a scourge of Texas landowners. The approved poison is called Kaput Feral Hog Lure and contains warfarin which is already used to kill larger rodents.

The colorful Miller offered up a meaty quote to reporters on Monday regarding the poison plan.

"This is going to be the hog apocalypse, if you like: If you want them gone, this will get them gone," Miller said.

Some Texas hunters are miffed because they enjoy hunting and killing the hogs with firearms or a bow and arrow, if they are especially skilled. For hunters shooting the hogs is a lot more fun than just poisoning them. The Texas Hog Hunters Association's Eydin Hansen says hunters who shoot and kill the hogs for their dinner tables would be less likely to if they suspect the hogs have poison in their systems. That group has started a Change.org petition to protest Miller's decision.

Scavenger animals like buzzards and coyotes may also be exposed to the chemical pellets aimed at eradicating feral hogs if they eat the hog carcass.

Miller's office wrote in statement to Dallas' CBS11 they fully-researched the Kaput product and considered the environmental impact. before approving its use on feral hogs

"Kaput Feral Hog Bait has been researched extensively and field-tested in Texas over the past decade in partnerships with various state agencies including TDA. Hogs are susceptible to warfarin toxicity, whereas humans and other animals require much higher levels of exposure to achieve toxic effects," the statement said.

The substance will only be available to licensed pesticide applicators, according to Miller's office, and dispensed in special hog feeders built for attracting the hogs.

"Warfarin has been studied extensively in animals and is practically non-toxic to birds. Due to the insolubility of warfarin in water, there should be no impact to aquatic life. Non-target wildlife, livestock and domestic pets would have to ingest extremely large quantities over the course of several days to reach a toxic level of warfarin in the bloodstream," Miller's office added.

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service has approved of the use of warfarin. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been consulted as well and they support this new feral hog control management practice.

"In general, secondary exposure to other animals is low because the levels of warfarin in target animals are generally too low to be toxic to either a predator or scavenger," Miller's statement read.

What about the nagging worry that a feral hog's meat is inedible? Some people say they taste just as good or better than standard pig flesh.

"Warfarin at 0.005 percent as a feral hog toxicant has been shown to have a low level of residue in hog meat, especially in muscle tissue, which is what humans typically consume. One person would have to eat 2.2 lbs of hog liver -- where the warfarin is most concentrated in the body -- to achieve the same exposure as a human would receive in one therapeutic dose of warfarin," the statement read.

Overrun with feral hogs, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is planning to fight dirty, using pesticide targeting the wild pigs to try to even the playing field. With a population of 2.5 million, the hogs cause about $50 million a year in damages to agriculture, plus untold damage to civilian backyards. Miller's solution? Warfarin-laced hog lure -- food laced with enough of the same drug used in rat poison to bring down a hog.

Most people taking warfarin for medical uses only take between 2 to 10 milligrams a day.

"Warfarin metabolizes and exits the body fairly quickly, so a hog that was trapped and fed for several days prior to processing would most likely not have any warfarin present at the time of slaughter," Miller's office wrote.

There will be a blue dye present in the hog's fatty tissue that will indicate ingestion of warfarin as well.

You can thank Spanish settlers for bringing feral hogs to North America centuries ago so they could reproduce and provide a food source.

Even though Kaput will now be the poison of choice for those plagued by hogs, don't expect hog hunting to lose any of its appeal in the state.

(c)2017 the Houston Chronicle


http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/tns-hog-apocalypse.html?utm_term=%27Hog%20Apocalypse%27%3A%20Texas%20Has%20a%20New%20Plan%20to%20Kill%20Feral%20Pigs&utm_campaign=Is%20the%20GOP%27s%20Tea%20Party%20Over&utm_content=email&utm_source=Act-On+Software&utm_medium=email

Warfarin is used all the time in rodent bait like Decon. The wholesale spreading of the stuff in the field has to devastate the rodents, AKA bird and predator feed.

One of those unintended consequences spoken of.

So you pay a licensed pest control guy to come out and place and maintain the bait...

Depends on if you are a hog or a land-owner over-run with same..

Sources? Some poisons do, others don't. I don't know in this case.

Where I hunt in east Texas there are quite a few hogs. Poison would not help the other animal population at all. There are a ton of coyotes and bobcats, and we saw one mountain lion, and they would be collateral damage from the poisoning of the hogs.

I would hate to see them disappear.

In addition to the predators, the birds that might help carcass removal like vultures and crows would suffer as well. My son killed a buck last November, and I have camera photos 20 minutes after we left of vultures landing on the gut pile...20 minutes. They were circling before we left and this was in an oak infested creek bottom.

BTW...I don't think the study was accurate. There will be downstream collateral damage.

As I stated earlier, the Director of the Wildlife Division of Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept. told me personally his department was NOT in favor of poisoning hogs.

This morning's local paper had a story about a lawsuit already filed to prevent this.

Mike

If it were to become widespread, I would bet that within five to ten years, a strain of hogs resistant to that poison would be reproducing and filling that vacant niche.

More likely than resistance, would be them learning to avoid the bait, IMO. Hogs are smart.

Because nitrites affect their hemaglobin and because they're uniquely sensitive to it, I don't see resistance happening.

Hogs will find a way to beat it; they're survivors. I don't think it's possible to wipe them out.

We can only attempt to control their growing numbers.

DF

They're not eating his crops, rooting up his fields and pastures...

It's easy to be a purist when YOUR ox is not being gored...

DF

Guess so. Nothing they can really damage on my place, and I like to have them to shoot occasionally, so I'm not a fan of poison.

Mike

It won't ever happen

Be nice to be able to pizen coyotes.

Im no tree hugger, but using science to eradicate anything is bad ju-ju.

Hell, science used to feed the world hasnt been without serious consequence in this neck of the woods.

But hey, hats off to Liz Garst for burning off some habitat last week....

Today's paper had a piece saying TP&WD is officially opposed, because the Warferin poison - the one Sid Miller wants to use - has not been thoroughly tested as to collateral damage on other animals, plus the Texas Hog Hunters Association (which I had never heard of before) has filed a lawsuit that was joined by TP&WD and resulted in an injunction being issued to stop the use of poison at least temporarily. Supposedly Australia has decided against it for "humane" reasons, because it kills pretty slowly.

Mike

Others have mentioned, because people WILL pay big money

and the abuse and neglect of too many so called hunters

but no one has answered - GREED. Feral hogs have become a natural Cash Crop.

Guys I'm in total sympathy with y'all. We have feral hogs in Ark but I've never lived close enuff to where they are to try to reduce their numbers.

Best of Luck to any/all who are infested with them.

Jerry

I doubt Warfarin will be approved at the state level for hog control, but sodium nitrite will be within the next couple years.

I've done some reading on sodium nitrite. The problem is getting them to eat it as it tastes and smells bad. Once they get a small dose, they avoid it. Researchers have been trying to find a way to hide it in some kind of edible feed. One article I read said that they've had good luck with gummy bears.

Why?

Poison will get into the environment and kill more than just hogs. Not a good idea.

Nitrites aren't such a toxic substance, per se. It just affects hog more than most animals.

Hogs have a unique sensitivity this material, turns their hemaglobin into methemaglobin which decreases oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. They suffocate and die.

DF