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This is too much for my Mindset, Even for Hogs!
I just saw a show on Sportsmans Channel that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. How can I explain my feeling here? It's not that I don't like the practice because ferel hogs are overtaking the place, but when Sportsman Channel has a show that features hunting out of helicoptors, that is too much for me. Is there any God but money in this country? There are no ethics anywhere anymore. Anything goes if you have money.
Like I said, I know they do this, but when you have a hunting show that features this as SPORT that has gone too far for me.
Like I said, I know they do this, but when you have a hunting show that features this as SPORT that has gone too far for me.
Daddy, what's an enabler?
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Replies
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Young boys that have the 'hunting gene' tend to be a little bloodthirsty anyway, until they are taught better, and it takes a lot of discipline on their part to adhere to grown-up rules. I teach my grandsons to respect the animals they shoot and not be wasteful at their expense, and watching the extermination hunts seems to contradict what their dad and I are trying to drill into their heads. It adds an extra little bit of confusion in there, and you always wonder if they are mature enough to make the necessary distinctions.
I guess, in the final analysis, adults should be supervising what the kids watch on TV, and a case can be made that these videos are not more harmful than violent movies. But still, it probably makes a difference that they know this is real, and that the animals killed are not props, and the shooters are not actors.
Our group on this Board sure has an abundance of common sence! Now, if "we" could just take over the government "we" could straighten things out and run the Country like it ought to be run......in our opinion :rotflmao:
Just to re-emphasize why I feel so strongly about feral hogs, consider this: My career in the woods of the Deep South was (still is, actually) in forest and wildlife management. I specialized as much as I could in the restoration of Native Longleaf Pine Forests trying to correct what the damnyankees did to us after the "Wawah". Regenerating Longleaf pine, naturally or by re-planting with feral hogs present is like throwing gasoline on a fire. It just won't work. Might as well invite the Taliban in to run things. Same difference.
Thanks for your response Bisley. As usual it is very level headed. I agree with you that people need to supervise their kids better and not just when dealing with hunting or watching TV in general.
But when I saw this on a Hunting show I almost freaked out.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Feral hogs are one of the few species we have here that have become "nuisance" animals. Orchidman has given us a pretty good insight into what it's like to have to do massive culling operations just to keep nuisance animals in check, and I'm sure he would share the opinion that there's a big difference in "hunting" and "culling". Putting a helicopter-based cull on TV, especially on a "hunting" show is irresponsible.
Jerry
As to how I feel about shooting vermin from a helicopter, I really only have one question - When doing it, what do you have in the CD player - Wagner, Stones, Fogerty, or a mix of all three?
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
I do agree, though, that it should not be presented as a hunting, sport, fair chase, or anything other than what it is.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Keep it simple. Just blast AC/DC. It'll have the same effect it did on Noriega
Culling is not Hunting and never will be.
Yes it does resemble hunting in that it can use the same 'weapons ' like firearms, stalking skills, decoys, calls etc, etc ,etc. But culling suspends some if not all the hunting ethics to achieve a particular result.
I choose who I take with me as culling is not for those with a weak stomach or those who cant see the difference.
The most important part for me is that the culls are carried out with the minimum fuss and exposure.........Publicity is a nightmare to deal with.
Here is the thing. In clubhouse recently a video was posted up of 'human kills' in Afghanistan. I personally have no difficulty with either the posting or the video as I realise there are some things that are borne of necessity.
However, there are those in society who's grasp of reality is different to mine and posting video's of that nature in a public domain like youtube or facebook can and will lead to public opinion being swayed one way or another and create division . Sometimes its better that such activities be kept out of the public domain.
Which leads me to the topic of the media, and the phrase ' The public has a right to know' ..........................Dont get me started on that!!!!
Jerry
I hear it's going to be in the summer Olympics this year!
No love lost here for pigs, we are under strict orders from the rancher that owns the place we hunt on to shoot all pigs on sight even if we just let them lay. I wouldn't mind popping a few from a helicopter. Sport? Well I wouldn't go that far but it sure does look like fun, they are just giant rats to me.
AKA: Former Founding Member
Both have you floating over the target, firing at the animal/fish with an accurate, powerful weapon, and with bowfishing you use sonar to find the fish.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
Actually, I'd say it's in part due to the arbitrarily higher value humans put on some mammals over most any fish. It's an ethical difference, and I'll admit I have a hard time legislating ethical choices. As sportsmen, we need to understand that our ethical choices are just that: our own. If an antigunner doesn't have a right to impose their ethics about firearms on us, what right do we have to impose our ethical hunting choices on another sportsman?
In the end, when it comes to game management, dead is dead . It really doesn't matter how they got their unless you're worried about fair distribution of opportunity, habitat damage incurred in your pursuit, or what folks think. A deer that's been killed with a bow, rifle, truck, or atlatl is just as dead, and has the same net impact on the population.
http://www.jagerpro.com/
D
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
Feral hogs are just a symptom of a greater disease. The disease has three prongs, and all three must be dealt with simultaneously to root out the disease and all it's symptoms. This can be applied to more than one nuisance/introduced species.
First prong: HUNTERS. Yep, when you point your pointer finger there are three pointing back at ya. Hunters pushed to have these hogs listed as a big game species. Nothing wrong with that per se. But hunters failed then, and fail now, to recognize that feral hogs are nothing more than rats with hooves, and breed at a not too dissimilar rate. Too much of a good thing that spreads like kudzu in the South. Hunters with closed minds still are trying to keep them listed as big game animals with unrealistic low limits on bag limits. This makes the problem worse. If the bag limit were raised to 10 per day that would be a good step towards the control of hog numbers. The 'Trophy Hunters' are the worst of the lot in this mess. They want big boars with long tusks for bragging rights and it takes a long time for a boar to grow them. And many hunters will pass up shot after shot at sows and yearlings waiting on that big boar.
Hunters (with deep pockets) originally imported Russian and European wild hog stock to offer game hunting opportunities. They spread out, mated with free running domestic hogs, and created a monster. The crossbreed stock is both prolific, hardy, and pretty darned smart. And they will eat almost anything; hogs are omnivores that will eat a road kill possum with the same relish as a bucket of fresh corn. And they destroy habitat like a herd of bulldozers on a mission.
Second prong: Fish and Game Departments. They bought into the listing of hogs as a game animal for one, and ONLY ONE, reason initially. Revenue for the state F&G Departments through sale of big game tags for hogs. They kept the bag limits unrealistically low to garner interest and make them(hogs) appear to be a desirable game animal. They furthered this myth by placing pictures of big boars with large tusks in their literature, and guess who bought into this circus? The Hunters. You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. When it comes to bragging rights on big game animals, way too many hunters are catfish.* (I'll explain that catfish crack at the end of this mess.)
F&G Departments in some states further exacerbated the problem by making it illegal to take a hog on state lands during deer season. I have often wondered what mentally deficient and morally bankrupt IDIOT came up with that rule. The F&G folks made the season unreasonably short given the hogs proclivity for having sex like drunken monkeys and sows having litters of huge proportions. If a game animal has a propensity to breed like rats, proper management would tend towards liberal bag limits and long seasons to keep their numbers to a manageable level. This has not been done, ever. Some states have finally seen the light and dropped them as game animals and listed them as a nuisance species that can be hunted year round with no bag limit. They are on the right track to getting a handle on the problem. But MUCH MORE needs to be done to reduce the hog numbers drastically to manageable levels.
Third prong: FARMERS AND RANCHERS. Yep. The majority land owners in most states are a BIG part of the problem. There are some good reasons that can be addressed, and then there are some excuses as lame as a legless horse.
Liability: Allowing hunters on their land has liabilities, and those liabilities can vary enormously from state to state. If a hunter is injured through his own fault or the landowners negligence in not pointing out dangerous conditions, the landowner can be sued to bankruptcy. If a fool hunter shoots and hits someone/something on someone else's property, the landowner may be held criminally liable along with the hunter. Hunters have been responsible for shooting farm animals and equipment thinking they were the game being pursued, and the landowner gets the dirty end of the stick on that one, too, if Elmer Fudd doesn't own up to the mistake.
Crop damage by idiot hunters(a small portion of hunters are IDIOTS!), livestock where they shouldn't be because some hunter failed to close the gate, and damage to fencing from hunters climbing fence instead of spreading wires and going between the wires, or pulling down what is referred to as woven wire or horse wire fencing by climbing over it instead of walking to a gate. All three of these stupid acts put livestock in danger, especially if near a road they can get on and get hit(landowner liability). Cattle are second only to Beagles in the art of escape from a fenced area.
Landowners that lease their land to hunting clubs that provide for their own liability insurance, but fail miserably in controlling the hog population. They have the 'trophy' mindset and will miserably fail to control the hog population. The lease is simpler for the landowner because a contract can be written up that shields the landowner somewhat from liability issues, and can have an escape clause if the hunting club fails to live up to the contract.
Some landowners just don't want hunters on their land, period. And get all PMS over crop damage from hogs. And some are just greedy wanting the easy money and limited liability from the hunt clubs. You can't fix stupid.
Some possible solutions:
1. States that have not delisted hogs as big game animals should do so immediately.
2. Baiting hogs with anything that will attract them should be not only made legal, but strongly encouraged.
3. Have a system set up that charges hunters a reasonable fee for hunting on private lands, has protections for the landowners, has specific stand areas to hunt from, and pays farmers for damage to animals and equipment and land. Landowner participation would be voluntary, and here's the kicker. Hogs will move to areas that they are not being pursued, so a reluctant farmer may find himself up to his eyeballs in hogs from the hunted farms around him. Might just get him with the program!
4. Bag limits for hogs will be liberal, as in all you can kill, plus one more. Encourage shooting any hogs that can be safely shot from the stands.
5. For states that do not allow feral hogs to be donated to food banks, have contracts set up with dog and cat food companies that can use the meat, and have a means to get them transported to a central collection point. Or just have a big hole dug on the farm to bury them if that is the most cost efficient. If enough money can be made from the sale of the hogs to the pet food companies or whoever, a nominal bounty per hog could be instituted to keep interest up in hunting them heavily.
6. Any hunter that seriously screws up on a participating landowner's property will be made legally liable(contract again) for damage and banned for at least ten years from participating in the program.
You don't have to hunt hogs from helicopters to control the population if you can get the three parties above in the Triumvirate of Terminal Stupidity to pull their heads out of their collective alimentary canal terminus and actually work towards a viable solution that benefits all. It should be noted that anyone attempting to get the above three Triumvirate members to work together should have serious long term experience in herding cats.
Edit to add: * Catfish: n. A prolific stout bodied fish considered to be all mouth and no brains.
― Douglas Adams
There is one other thing I would like to add.
Hogs would make a great 'starter' animal to allow young hunters to be introduced to the sport of hunting. If it was 'free for all' as far as hogs go, a Hunter Education' course could include hog hunts where young guys n gals could learn under an experienced hunter. The same skills that are required for all hunting such as stalking, target ID, gun safety etc etc apply just as much to hogs.
http://myfwc.com/hunting/by-species/wild-hog/
On state-managed lands, there are seasons, gear restrictions, some have bag and size limits, and you need licenses. Also you can't spotlight for them. The season and gear restrictions are an attempt to prevent people from poaching deer out of season and claiming they're there for hogs. Licenses are to pay for the management of the land, as state Fish and Wildlife management is paid for out of license sales and matching federal dollars, with no general revenue funds being used except for some law enforcement.
Good point. That would be an excellent introduction to hunting larger game animals. Coupled with the Hunter Education course, it would be a definite win-win!
― Douglas Adams
Good to see that the private land can be hunted to get the critters under control with effective methods. FL done good on that, and other states could productively follow that model.
The part I bolded is what really chaps my gluteus maximus. Not the license part; I get that and it should be required to maintain and pay for the officers and management of the land. The few that would misuse the privilege that could be granted for hunting and baiting the hogs, and hunting them year round on state managed land when deer season isn't open is being held hostage by those few that can't obey the law. Kind of reminds me of the push to put brethalyzers in all cars as standard equipment because of the people that try to drive while drunk.
Just so you know, I'm not knocking what FL does on the state managed land. TN does much the same on state managed lands as to the hog hunting. I guess some 'hunters' have major problems when it comes to temptation.
― Douglas Adams
The only method I have heard of that seems to reduce their numbers in any measurable way is a combination of trapping and night hunting. Baited night hunts from high stands work best, and are targeted strictly at the old, smart ones. Eliminating them leaves the younger ones much more vulnerable to trapping. The idea is to kill the smart ones (big, old ones) with as little disruption as possible to the rest of them. Even then, the traps have to be emptied regularly, moved often, and some pains taken to disguise them. The best trapping results will be immediately after the 'alphas' are removed, before the young ones learn to avoid the traps.
From what I understand about this method, it still takes a lot of hard work and daily attention, just to break even with the reproduction rate. Assuming that this really is the most effective method, the smart thing to do would be to find an outlet for selling the meat and hides, so that 'contractors' could do this for a living. The ones that are trapped, near where I live, can be sold, apparently for human consumption (somewhere), because they have to be alive.
Dan
These guys feel safe around the feeder and are waiting for it to go off. I found a shed with six points about 15ft from this feeder and had quite a few deer comming to it. Now that the hogs found it, the deer have moved on.
Most of the hogs on the place have gone nocturnal but these youngsters haven't figured it out yet. Hogs rarely show up on the cameras during daylight hours.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
I think culling is a good business idea, and definitely multi spectrum capable... Today Pigs! Tomorrow...Somali Pirates??
And is anyone hiring for cullers? or is it strictly on a volunteer basis??
Just trying to understand this better.
Judging by the captions in his pics these were taken with so called "Trail Cams". So no one was anywhere near the scene.
In any event I know a guy, Master Plumber by trade, but an Arkansas version of Swamp People by avocation. He's become a prolific trapper of feral hogs. He says he usually catches the whole bunch. He also says if you shoot one or more, they never come back to that place.
Anyway, my state, as far as I know, has never classified them as, Big Game. They've always been classified as nuisance animals. You can kill them pretty much anywhere with no bag limit and you can let them lie. There are some WMAs where you can't hunt them but most of those aren't near so called hog country. Which is mostly the Southern half of the state.
Years ago I was in a deer camp and a buddy killed a monster boar. A real McCoy Razorback, piney woods rooter. It was all 4 grown men could do just to get him on the tailgate. He, (my buddy, not the hog), had the head mounted. It was a real nice trophy. But he also had the meat processed. It's true what they say about that meat. At least in the case of that particular hog.
However, my Swamp People friend only butchers the piglets and shoats and I can testify that that meat is some mighty fine eatin'
As was said above, this is culling a pest, not hunting. Now if this was a moose hunt or something along those lines, then it would be immoral as all get out.
Me... PAS13, and a 7.62x54R "Super Varmint" gun, or maybe 308...
definitely nothing less than .30 caliber.
Having said that, the 7mm08 has been used.
Heck, I even use my 222 to shoot wild bulls..................and got grief from those on here that wanted me to use the 10.75X68 Mauser!