Feral hog problem - why so bad now?

[gardenfay]

We have been seeing more and more hunting shows about feral hogs in the U.S. It sounds like they are becoming more of a problem in ever-increasing areas of the U.S. I wonder why.

[CountryKitty]

Pigs are the most intelligent animal ever domesticated. They are also great survivors--large litters with very protective mothers, eat anything, thick layer of fat to protect against the cold (and reportedly, snakebite), built like a tank.

Nothing short of a bear could pose a serious natural threat, other than humans with guns or traps. And with the numbers of hunters down in recent years, there really is very little to stop them from spreading. They are becoming a serious pest in many states

[WileyCoyote]

All very true, CK. Not to mention that humans are constantly pushing into the wild, wanting to 'be close to nature' - rarely realizing that nature isn't just cute bunnies and birdies, but deer that graze your pretty flowers to the ground, coons that will fight you for the right to cross "your" yard, even panthers and bears that have been undisturbed for several generations.

I used to work for a 911 system in a rapidly growing area; I can't tell you the number of calls we used to get from folks in brannew subdivisions who were hysterically demanding that we send a deputy to shoot the animal that was sitting outside their glass doors, rooting in their garden, or on the roof of their car, not letting the human do what he wanted in his 'own' yard. These were always the same people who protested against the hunters that were killing Bambi.

[gardenfay]

My thoughts are quite similar to CK; fewer hunters; very little to stop them from spreading.
But that is after they've been out there awhile, right? Where are the owners when they get out?

Here are a few more thoughts along those lines.
I think that even our rural populations are not what they used to be.
I think that even 30 years ago; when I was growing up that if a guy's pigs got out; he went and got them and if he had a boar that just wouldn;t stay put; he got rid of him because he knew it was his responsibility.
But the other night we watched a program about hunting feral hogs in eastern Oklahoma - where i was raised - and they talked about what a huge problem they present there now.
Yes, they are intelligent and they were prolific; but they have been so in the past and there weren't packs of them wreaking havoc in places like eastern ok. (my husband says they were in north florida as early as 1969).
Anyway, for them to start being such a widespread problem; it makes me wonder if it isn't just a case of people not taking care of their stuff - you know, it runs off; oh well attitude.
And i wondered what others thought.
Course it Could be a Conspiracy!!??? :o

[CountryKitty]

That's true--with our throw-away society many people seem to feel that it's easier to buy a replacement than take care of what you've got.

Keep in mind tho'--with farming being increasingly a large scale organization, the loss of 1 or 2 pigs out of 1000 may not be noticed until the piggy has gotten far away.

[edward_4576]

Not just hogs. I can remember as a boy seeing people driving through the country and stopping to abandon a dog or cat.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/12/27/mims.nc.dog.attack.wral

I remember as a child you could go to the five and dime store and get baby peeps and ducklings for Easter. In the spring relatives that lived in the city who caught baby bunnies or bought them small pets would bring them out to our house cause "we were country folks" and new what to do with them.

In the everglades they are having a rash of problems because people buy these pythons or what ever and when they get too big they dump them in the swamp where they have no natural predators. There was an instance where they had put a radio tracking device on one of them snakes and had released it in hopes that they could find other of the same species.

While out tracking it they noticed that the snake had started to hunt them. It's not just beasts either, what about Kudzu and multifloral rose. And just ask Txannie about them bees coming up from the south.

I’m not a tree hugging liberal or an out of my mind animal rights activist but the responsibility for taking care of our environment falls to each of us. I used to be able to go down over the hill and just stroll through the woods but not now, better take a shotgun for all the feral dogs and such and the idea of a bag limit is pathetic. In many cities herds of deer are sick and starving because there are too many deer.

Recently wolves were reintroduced into western parks because they were a necessity of the ecology and let’s not forget all the damage done to the west coast because of the inability of land owners being allowed to clear dead wood from their lands…

I do get riled up some don’t I……

:-[

[gardenfay]

country kitty; that is right, i hadn't even thought of those huge hog operations. they wouldn't miss a few gone. . . well probably wouldnt miss them forever LOL
Ed i agree with you, too. and believe me i'm not writing this cuz i am a bunny hugger. Im not.
The way i was raised; if you got that cute cuddly puppy and it didn't work out and nobody else wanted it either; you didn't go drop it off to become someone elses problem. you took it on a walk, along with the .22 and came home alone.
but you are right. it isn't just hogs. and i can get a little riled up about these animal situations too.
the reintroduced wolves you mentioned are here in northcentral montana. i see bumper stickers on ranch pickups that say : "Wolves: government-sponsored terrorists."
in november; my husband asked me while we were hunting if I thought a distant animal was a wolf; i said no at first; but we looked at him with binocs and decided we really thought it was a young wolf.
he told several people; even the ranchers told him there were not wolves in that area.
about 2 weeks ago; a number of cows were killed in that area. from what i can hear it was 5 or 6; no body wants to talk about it much. it was wolves; even the fish and game admits now .

[CountryKitty]

You're not the only ones who feel that way guys.
DH and I are actually against the sale of exotic pets and foreign plants because so many people don't know how to care for the animals or to contain the plants.

I've pulled up a ton of Japanese Honeysuckle here because it was strangling the young trees terribly. And it was disease carried on introduced chestnut trees that devestated the great American Chestnut. A friend in NH tells me that burning bush is taking over the understory of the woods out there, crowding out the native growth.

It makes me sick the way a lot of animals get dumped too. Just a couple years back a 6 foot gator was pulled out of a farmer's pond in Ohio; someone had snuck onto the property adn dumped it--thank God the farmer's kids or grandkids didn't go down to the pond to wade or skip stones!There was also a 22' python found living under a house in FL quite a few years ago--apparently it had lived off neighborhood pets, strays and the wildlife an elder couple were feeding in the back yard; that's big enough to make a meal out of a kid or petite elderly lady, y'know? I currently have a *gorgeous young silver tabby who was dumped on the highway that runs out front... he was dehydrated and half-starved, tho' he's now so roly poly you'd never guess he'd ever been neglected.


Grrrrrr.....

[WileyCoyote]

We have all sorts of ferals here. People drive down our dead end specifically to dump off unwanted animals. I have over 20 feral cats that come up to grab a bite to eat in the evenings. They do keep down the snake and varmint population, though! My neighbor tried to take in the dogs until she got overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and started taking them to the pound instead. We get hunting dogs that can't be trained, we get mutts with litters of pups, cats with litters of kittens.

Everyone denied at DNR that we had coyotes up until three years ago; now they estimate we might have 400 in the state. They're idiots; we have seen them while out hunting and just walking; one sat and watched me in my hammock one afternoon!

We've always had wild pigs; people turn them out to run and forage rather than keep them in mud enclosures and get caught by animal control. One fellow, knowing that he was about to be arrested for the poor treatment of animals on his 3 acres in the woods, turned loose over 40 pigs, 20 goats, 50 chickens/ducks/geese - yet left four dogs chained in pens without food or water. They could only bust him on the dogs.

and once when driving down a four lane road at dusk, my car was attacked by an emu! Turns out that some folks got them for the high dollar meat and egg sales, but they were too wild to keep and couldn't be fenced or kept, so they just turned them loose!

[gardenfay]

Yea, my husband was reading the other day; i think it was in Fur-Fish-Game that there are now coyotes in several states where they have not traditionally been.

[CountryKitty]

Speaking of coyotes, while I'm sure the experts still insist they won't attack humans, don't let your kids wander too far afield where coyotes are known to exist. Anything that can take down a german shepherd (which has been known to happen) isn't going to hesitate at a smaller than average human.

Just this Spring, in New Jersey I think, a large animal cleared a fence to go after a 4yo in his backyard. An 11yo (his uncle?) ran at it and yelled at it and I think he even hit it--adults came out of the house and ran it off; one said he'd seen coyotes before and that he knew the animals was a coyote.

Some people seem to think they are harmless, but any animal that will snatch your pet off of your porch to make a meal of it is obviously thinking of homeplaces as hunting grounds---I shudder to think of them coming across an elderly person in a rural area who has fallen in the back yard and can't get up.

[remington]

THey finally made it here to Kansas. Well, the Parks people starting off letting us hunt them whenever we wanted. Now, they hire SWAT teams to go out with helicopters to shoot down whole herds and burn the bodies. Dogs are also problems. Pack mentality. Somebodies pet dog may not be harmfull when alone but get them in a pack and you have trouble. Read what this guy has to say about that: http://www.captaindaves.com/buckshot/index.htm Also since there are less hunters the coyotes are becoming bolder and bolder. Last deer season I shot one at 10 feet with the wind blowing from me to him, and me standing up and waving.

[gardenfay]

remington;
thank you for that website. i read 2 of the dog articles. will try to read the others later and i'm sure my husband will too. he is a trapper and will check out the whole website.

well, i think this ole world is getting stranger and stranger.
there is a passage in Revelation that says something about a bunch of mankind will be killed by beasts of the field in the end times.
I remember when I was growing up that sure seemed unlikely. I knew we had a few feral dog problems in eastern okla. but never gave it too much thought.
now i have to say by the time you count feral dogs, feral pigs, killer bees, coyotes and a few other things; it doesn't seem very farfetched to me at all.
i may not agree with every single thing the guy said on his website; but i sure think people are nuts if they don't think feral pigs or dogs could be a serious threat to humans.

[remington]

garden fay- He is on the extreme side of the issue, but he is making his point.

[gardenfay]

yea, a little extreme; but i say better safe than sorry on some of these things.l
its not something i'll spend as much time worrying about as some more like him might; but i don't think its a bad idea to think of some of these worst cast scenarios.
it just has to help prepare us for what might happen.
we were on public land the other day, trapping and i told my husband; this is an area i would consider coming to in several situations if TSHTF. he looked around; we discussed building a shelter into a hillside, etc.
i walked off feeling good about it and i think he did too.

[remington]

Plan for the worst and hope for the best.

[gardenfay]

exactamundo!

[Kpdpipes]

Speaking of coyotes, *while I'm sure the experts still insist they won't attack humans, don't let your kids wander too far afield where coyotes are known to exist. Anything that can take down a german shepherd (which has been known to happen) isn't going to hesitate at a smaller than average human.

Just this Spring, in New Jersey I think, *a large animal cleared a fence to go after a 4yo in his backyard. An 11yo (his uncle?) ran at it and yelled at it and I think he even hit it--adults came out of the house and ran it off; one said he'd seen coyotes before and that he knew the animals was a coyote.

Some people seem to think they are harmless, but any animal that will snatch your pet off of your porch to make a meal of it is obviously thinking of homeplaces as hunting grounds---I shudder to think of them coming across an elderly person in a rural area who has fallen in the back yard and can't get up.

Kitty we had abut 5 Yote' attacks here and i do Mean "Here" i live about 1/2 mile from one of the sites. There were a few pets grabbed, and 2 people bitten. Of course there are those who swear up and down that there ARE no Yotes, and it's all just hysteria..Exceot that there are those of us who live in the area who DO know the difference between a dog and a Coyote. The Yote's were protected, living on a rather large US military facility, they started going out into the surrounding towns ,and found that Humans A; wouldnt harass them, and B: provided all kinds of yummy treats like garabge and tied out pets. Middletown PD ended up shooting 2 IIRC, and beanbagging a couple more, ever since they've apparently rgained their fear of humans and havent been a factor for a few months.

[WRTN]

Kitty we had abut 5 Yote' attacks here and i do Mean "Here" i live about 1/2 mile from one of the sites. *There were a few pets grabbed, and 2 people bitten. *Of course there are those who swear up and down that there ARE no Yotes, and it's all just hysteria..

Karen,

Do you still have this yote problem in your area or did I read the post wrong? *I have recently taken up coyote hunting and learning from a group of hunters who are well equipped as well as been having some good luck calling the coyotes with electronic and hand calls.

From what have learned thus far, the coyotes in this area evidently have wolf DNA in them as well as some crosses with feral dogs. Hence the more aggressive nature and loss of fear of humans.

I invited these guys out to my place and they shot a 27 lb. female yote the first week they were there along with a coon. *

[gardenfay]

Karen,

Do you still have this yote problem in your area or did I read the post wrong? *I have recently taken up coyote hunting and learning from a group of hunters who are well equipped as well as been having some good luck calling the coyotes with electronic and hand calls.

From what have learned thus far, the coyotes in this area evidently have wolf DNA in them as well as some crosses with feral dogs. *Hence the more aggressive nature and loss of fear of humans. *

I invited these guys out to my place and they shot a 27 lb. female yote the first week they were there along with a coon. **



WRTN
that is very interesting about feral dog and wolf DNA in the coyotes. i hadn't thought about it; but it sure makes sense - especially the feral dog part. And even the wolves - with people keeping wolf-dogs as pets and then them going feral - thats all it would take.

i know that ranchers around here are having more problems with coyotes attacking newborn calves and they said that was rare in the past.
the fish and game came to our area a couple of weeks ago and helicopter hunted coyotes because of this - they got either 21 or 23. if i understood right; it was in one day.