Boar Wars

[Aloha_Shooter]

It seems counter intuitive but they call it the cobra effect

I understand that but I've seen no evidence that effect is in play. Then again, I haven't really looked for it so am just asking Irving if he has some documentation on this. Without documentation, it's an extrapolated effect that flies in the face of hundreds of years of human experience with hunting.

[Irving]

I'm sure there is documentation, but I don't have it readily available. I'm mostly getting that info from Steven Rinella's MeatEater podcast where he regularly has guests that are land managers, fish and game employees, game wardens, professional trappers, etc that have talked about this issue specifically.

For example, all those "hogzilla" photos you see occasionally popping up, are farm raised hogs that people have let loose so they could then hunt them down for a grip and grin photo with a monster. All the wild pig people are saying that they get to maybe 400-500lbs in the wild. So when someone shoots an 1,100lb monster, it's because it was fattened up on a farm first. One of those instances of a "hogzilla" picture, a guy came out and said it wasn't a wild hog, and the guy with his kids in the photo had bought it from him last month. Guy apparently even had photos of the pig in the back of a truck from before.

[Irving]

I understand that but I've seen no evidence that effect is in play. Then again, I haven't really looked for it so am just asking Irving if he has some documentation on this. Without documentation, it's an extrapolated effect that flies in the face of hundreds of years of human experience with hunting.

No it doesn't. It matches with hundreds of years of humans importing noon-native game for food and letting it loose. Trout, piegeons, goats, pigs, etc.

[FoxtArt]

Texas is the variable that both drives the cobra effect and mitigates it though. A ban in hunting in Texas probably would've mitigated the spread (coupled with state ran culling). But, I'm not sure it would affect any other state.

Hog Hunting is a pretty sizeable economy in Texas. Want to make extra money on your 320 acres? Start doing hog hunting. Don't have hogs? Well, go get some.

That doesn't apply elsewhere, because even if you bring in a ton of feral hogs to say, Colorado, nobody is going to be coming over to pay money to hunt them. Nobody. The mental impression is you might have 6 feral hogs in Colorado, but you've got millions in Texas. They are going to Texas. The mental impression anywhere else is that it would be a highly localized, brief amount of hogs; contrasted against Texas helicopter hunts, that economy stops at the Texas state line.

I don't even think there'd be a drive to import hogs across the border in say, OK. Bring in 50 pigs, have them eating your land, and have exactly 0 people willing to pay money to shoot them. Cause Texas ---> is right over there. People would probably want to charge the landowner to kill them anywhere else.

Political geography and economy has significant roles in this issue.

[Irving]

Texas is unique in that it is nearly 100% private land, and you can own whatever you want on your land. There are laws against transporting animals, but I'm not well versed in them. All boars are to be castrated before transport. I know a few people on here have been down to hunt hogs. If you get the chance, check your boars to see if they are castrated. That lets you know that particular pig has been trapped previously. That kind of ruins the idea that you shot a wild animal and are contributing to the fight to control them. But if you know that going in, it'd still be just as fun.

I'm not in any way trying to say that there isn't a pig problem, because there absolutely is. If you aren't interested in the hog hunting, but some of your neighbors are, then you're likely boned and have to deal with the associated costs whether you want to or not.

Hogs are unique because of their unique ability to thrive in a variety of environments, coupled with their high birth rates. Hogs reach breeding maturity in something like six months, breed all year long, and can knock out large liters over and over. I heard some statistic that a local population can be reduced by up to 80% year after year without actually threatening the existence of the group.

So once they are established, very difficult to deal with.

[eddiememphis]

https://cpw.state.co.us/learn/Lists/...rm.aspx?ID=293

Colorado DOW on hogs.

They have been sighted in Colorado, southeast and southwest.

You can take as many as you want with legal means, no poison, dogs or night vision.

It's a quick read and very informative.

[Aloha_Shooter]

No it doesn't. It matches with hundreds of years of humans importing noon-native game for food and letting it loose. Trout, piegeons, goats, pigs, etc.

No, it doesn't. The importation of invasive species that have no natural predator is what causes the explosion. Zebra mussels and Asian carp in the Great Lakes, mongeese and rats in Hawaii, scorpionfish in the Caribbean ... in all cases, the populations exploded without hunting. Hunting has been implemented to control the populations (albeit frequently unsuccessfully). In none of the cases I mention have the species been hunted (although I do recall Michigan or Illinois starting a program with chefs creating recipes for carp, trying to create an incentive for fisherman to go after them). Feral pigs are also hunted in Hawaii but in very limited fashion -- there's no economic benefit so no one is encouraging the pigs but they have no natural predators in Hawaii. Feral cats in Australia, cats and rats in New Zealand -- in neither case are they hunted. Hunting of carrier pigeons didn't cause a population explosion, it caused an implosion in the 19th century. Moa in New Zealand were also hunted to extinction. Wolves had a severa decline but are now making a comeback in Germany now that hunting has reduced (for societal rather than legislative reasons).

Your other mention of anecdotes from wardens, etc. is sort of what I was looking for but that effect does seem to be limited to Texas -- and the issue there is much like government-funded healthcare or education because of the artificial hunting economy. There's a difference between "farms" making money from the hunting itself (and therefore encouraging growth of the prey) and people going out hunting without creating an incentive for someone to encourage growth of the animals. There are private ranges in South Africa that cater to exotic hunting but that isn't creating a market for people to import the exotic prey to Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, etc. Even within South Africa, the legalized hunting has had a generally localized effect. Coyotes aren't hunted in the Northeast -- that hasn't prevented them from reestablishing populations.

It's not the legalization or ban of hunting that is having the direct effect, it's the creation of an economy The conservation projects I participated in (Namibia & Sumatra), tried to use this same effect but by using eco-tourism instead of hunting to create the economic incentive for locals to stop the poaching. The locals were already hunting and it wasn't creating a population explosion, quite the reverse.

I wouldn't have an issue if you'd said allowing the creation of a Texas-style pig-hunting economy would be counter-productive but that's different from what you actually said ("The best way states who don't currently have a problem with pigs, to keep it that way, is to ban pig hunting from the get go. "). The ban you propose doesn't prevent the pigs from migrating from Texas to Colorado and establishing themselves in favorable conditions. Geography prevents them from migrating and environment makes the conditions less favorable.

[Irving]

No, it doesn't. The importation of invasive species that have no natural predator is what causes the explosion. Zebra mussels and Asian carp in the Great Lakes, mongeese and rats in Hawaii, scorpionfish in the Caribbean ... in all cases, the populations exploded without hunting. Hunting has been implemented to control the populations (albeit frequently unsuccessfully). In none of the cases I mention have the species been hunted (although I do recall Michigan or Illinois starting a program with chefs creating recipes for carp, trying to create an incentive for fisherman to go after them). Feral pigs are also hunted in Hawaii but in very limited fashion -- there's no economic benefit so no one is encouraging the pigs but they have no natural predators in Hawaii. Feral cats in Australia, cats and rats in New Zealand -- in neither case are they hunted. Hunting of carrier pigeons didn't cause a population explosion, it caused an implosion in the 19th century. Moa in New Zealand were also hunted to extinction. Wolves had a severa decline but are now making a comeback in Germany now that hunting has reduced (for societal rather than legislative reasons).

Your other mention of anecdotes from wardens, etc. is sort of what I was looking for but that effect does seem to be limited to Texas -- and the issue there is much like government-funded healthcare or education because of the artificial hunting economy. There's a difference between "farms" making money from the hunting itself (and therefore encouraging growth of the prey) and people going out hunting without creating an incentive for someone to encourage growth of the animals. There are private ranges in South Africa that cater to exotic hunting but that isn't creating a market for people to import the exotic prey to Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, etc. Even within South Africa, the legalized hunting has had a generally localized effect. Coyotes aren't hunted in the Northeast -- that hasn't prevented them from reestablishing populations.

It's not the legalization or ban of hunting that is having the direct effect, it's the creation of an economy The conservation projects I participated in (Namibia & Sumatra), tried to use this same effect but by using eco-tourism instead of hunting to create the economic incentive for locals to stop the poaching. The locals were already hunting and it wasn't creating a population explosion, quite the reverse.

I wouldn't have an issue if you'd said allowing the creation of a Texas-style pig-hunting economy would be counter-productive but that's different from what you actually said ("The best way states who don't currently have a problem with pigs, to keep it that way, is to ban pig hunting from the get go. "). The ban you propose doesn't prevent the pigs from migrating from Texas to Colorado and establishing themselves in favorable conditions. Geography prevents them from migrating and environment makes the conditions less favorable.

There are so many things to comment on, I don't think I can keep it all comprehensible. I'll address what I can.

Carrier pigeons were driven to extinction by hunting because they need a lot of animals to survive as a species. Either their are millions of them, or there are none of them. They are pretty much the opposite of pigs. Similar to the difference between coyotes and wolves, but we'll get to that later.

Just to be clear, I'm arguing the spread of pigs is definitely influenced by the recent popularity of hunting, and the subsequent transport of animals within, and across state boundaries in an attempt to start pig hunting in locations that did not previously have them. I'm NOT saying that's the only reason. Obviously they are going to spread due to their natural fecundity and ability to survive in a variety of environments. Look at the historical population densities at this link for example: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/res.../sa-fs-history

Look at the big jump between 1982 and 2004. If we can agree that pigs have been here for at least 500 years now, why did they just stay in the South until recently starting to expand North? Some of the expansion seems intuitive, like the filling out of Texas and California. But what about the odd patchwork you see all the way up into Nebraska, Illinois, and even the chunk in Minnesota?

Wolves had a severa decline but are now making a comeback in Germany now that hunting has reduced (for societal rather than legislative reasons).

Like pigeons, wolves are a bad example because they are easy to kill and slow to bounce back (slow compared to pigs). With the scent of the alpha, the entire pack can be killed. We demonstrated this by nearly completely eradicating wolves by the 1940's.

Your other mention of anecdotes from wardens, etc. is sort of what I was looking for but that effect does seem to be limited to Texas -- and the issue there is much like government-funded healthcare or education because of the artificial hunting economy. There's a difference between "farms" making money from the hunting itself (and therefore encouraging growth of the prey) and people going out hunting without creating an incentive for someone to encourage growth of the animals. There are private ranges in South Africa that cater to exotic hunting but that isn't creating a market for people to import the exotic prey to Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, etc. Even within South Africa, the legalized hunting has had a generally localized effect. Coyotes aren't hunted in the Northeast -- that hasn't prevented them from reestablishing populations.

One of the things you'll see if you ever dive into the hunting podcasts I mentioned, is that every time someone comes onto the show who says they are working to control the population of hogs, they are asked point blank that if they had a magic wand and could make pigs disappear from the landscape (that they just spent the last hour talking about how bad they are), not a single person has ever said they'd wave the wand. Not once. I've listened to every single podcast, and now it is a running theme when talking about pigs. That is anecdotal of course, but it does speak to the idea that while people may talk about how big of a problem pigs are on one hand, none of them even want to imagine a world without them. Not a very productive argument, but it illustrates that even the people whose job it is to manage populations don't really want them gone. I think it's a combination of a sort of job protection, and just the love of hunting and interacting with the animal.

I'm not sure what to say about hunting in South Africa, as that's another very complicated topic that doesn't really translate to this situation.

It's not the legalization or ban of hunting that is having the direct effect, it's the creation of an economy The conservation projects I participated in (Namibia & Sumatra), tried to use this same effect but by using eco-tourism instead of hunting to create the economic incentive for locals to stop the poaching. The locals were already hunting and it wasn't creating a population explosion, quite the reverse.

Here again you're using an example that doesn't quite fit the pig model. I'll use the extreme example of poaching elephants, realizing that it's the most extreme and low hanging fruit. Elephants have a gestation period of 22 months and they have one calf at a time. Insanely easy to knock out a population under those conditions. If you can kill 80% of a pig population every year and have no dent in it's population size every year (sorry I don't have a source on that), you literally can't even kill them fast enough (with guns) to control the population. It doesn't take moving pigs around all the time to cause problems in new areas. They get out of pens and the spread starts right away.

I wouldn't have an issue if you'd said allowing the creation of a Texas-style pig-hunting economy would be counter-productive but that's different from what you actually said ("The best way states who don't currently have a problem with pigs, to keep it that way, is to ban pig hunting from the get go. "). The ban you propose doesn't prevent the pigs from migrating from Texas to Colorado and establishing themselves in favorable conditions. Geography prevents them from migrating and environment makes the conditions less favorable.

I'm not proposing any bans, I'm referencing what other states have already done. Other states have been watching Texas trying to manage the pig problem and have picked up on people transporting pigs across state lines. In an attempt to stop that trend before it starts, they've banned the hunting of pigs. They probably know more about the issue than I do.

Here is an article about Missouri banning pig hunting: https://www.kansascity.com/news/poli...e86654827.html
Here is an article about trapping and transporting within, and across state lines, in Alabama: https://www.outdooralabama.com/node/1527

Two last things I want to touch on.

Coyotes aren't hunted in the Northeast -- that hasn't prevented them from reestablishing populations.

At the time of European contact in North America, there were no coyotes in the Northeast, or the Southeast, or the Northwest, or the West. They were in the mid-west and south. When we decided to go on a war against predators (initially wolves) by having hunting bounties, and then later mass poisoning, wolf populations plummeted while coyote populations remained stable in established areas, and grew in areas previously without coyotes. The facility making all the poison was located in Denver by the way. Coyote bounty number refused to drop, so states raised the bounty. When the numbers still didn't drop, the states were running out of money and had to lower the bounties. At one point in I think the 1920's there were over 1.2 million poison traps set out for coyotes in the US, but it was also killing other predators like bears, bobcats, lynx, mountain lions, etc. Coyotes are different from wolves in that wolves are strictly pack animals and they cannot survive without a pack. When wolf populations were at the very lowest, wolves were starting to mate with dogs out of desperation because they couldn't find other wolves to mate with. Coyotes on the other hand can function equally as well in packs or as individuals, so when they are pressured they spread out and start having larger litters. The point being that coyotes are in the Northeast as a direct result of hunting. Anyway, there is a great book all about this called Coyote America by Dan Flores. I just finished it if you want to borrow it.

Finally, isn't something interesting happening in Hawaii right now with respect to pigs? You'd know way more about this than I would. From what I understand the government is calling for the eradication of pigs because they aren't native, but the people of Hawaii are saying that they aren't native either, and since they were the ones that brought the pigs, they've all been occupying the land for the same amount of time and have an intertwined history. That's the way I understand it anyway.

Sorry for the rambling post.

[Irving]

This site has some information as well. I was mostly interested in the little chart about reproduction at the top of page #2 about birth rates.

https://invasivespecies.wa.gov/docum...arvestinTX.pdf

[Irving]

Dang that was a long post. Here is the tl,dr.

Here is what I'm trying to say.
-pigs are a problem, wherever they are.
-hunting pigs is super fun. So fun that an industry has been built around it.
-Due to that industry, pigs get moved into areas sooner than the pics would get there on their own, then the problem starts there.
-While hunting may not be the cause of general pig populations and problems, in no way is it a solution to those problems.
-When the industry sells the idea that you should pay to hunt pigs to help keep the population in check, this is false.