Hog Hunting Banned in Kentucky??????

[deewayne2003]

If you want meaningful hog control/eradication it's honestly going to be lots of work and takes a multi point plan of trapping, hunting and perhaps helicopter work.

In Agriculture it's estimated that every feral hog creates $2,000 worth of damage to farm land and when you consider that the gestation period of 115days and are sexually mature at 5-6months you can see how they get out of hand quickly.

This is by far the most effective trap I've ever seen.

 

[mdwest]

theres no question that trapping is incredibly effective... I hunt a property about 90 minutes north of Houston that is 26,000 acres... the property owner allowed a trapper to work the land about 2 years ago.. the trapper took 2,000+ hogs off the land during the 12 months he maintained traps on the property...

that still did not control the hog population by itself..

hunters took another 150+ hogs off the land that year...

and while we certainly saw a reduction in the number of sounders and the size of the sounders that year.. hunting and trapping combined barely maintained the population (kept it from growing)...

the trapper moved on a little over a year ago...

back in March we did a group hog hunt on the property.. and took a dozen hogs in 2 days.. we ran out of time.. or we would have taken many, many more..


Ive got a small lease in East TX (about an hour south of Texarkana, near the LA border).. its just 135 acres... I dont trap, and honestly I havent had much time to hunt hogs on the property this year.. but I know of at least 2 different sounders that frequent our feeders as well as one huge lone boar (Im guessing him to be pushing 350lbs now based on pics) that comes in at least one or two nights a week..

Trapping would likely clear out most of the pigs in those two sounders... but Im extremely doubtful it would do anything to actually clear my lease of pigs.. my place is frankly pig paradise.. we've got a 2 acre pond that is wet year round on the property, we're covered up with acorn bearing trees, have multiple thicket areas that are anywhere from 2-10 acres each that are perfect for bedding (low areas that are wet, and super thick), and they have free meals within just a short walk anywhere on the property (we're running 6x blinds and feeders on the 135 acres)...

Take out the 2 sounders that are living on the property, and its a guarantee that 2 more will move in.. unless we ran a trapping operation year round, in perpetuity, until all hogs were removed from NE Texas (a decades long proposition at best).. we're still going to have pigs.. and still going to need to shoot any/all we see (theyre decimating the turkey and deer population in the meantime)..

I dont claim to be an expert on feral pig reproduction or anything else pigs do.. but I have hunted hundreds of them at this point over a period of close to 20 years.. I also dont know what the pig problem(s) look like in other places like MO, TN, KY, etc.. but my assessment is.. at least in central, north, and east TX where I have spent a lot of time removing pigs from the planet is... if youre not doing EVERYTHING possible to remove EVERY pig you see from the woods.. that youre not doing enough.. no one tactic or methodology will eradicate them.. it takes a multi-pronged approach, delivered over a long period of time just to get populations under control.. and then you must continue all of your efforts to keep the population from bouncing back (let it slide for even 6 months and you'll be overrun all over again)..

 

[thriller]

I noticed this line in the article:

”Robinson said other wildlife management agencies in the South had recommended the Kentucky agency take measures to prevent a problematic “pig hunting culture” from being established."

Let's face it, right now, pig hunting is big business. There are tons of outfitters throughout the south making money hand over fist selling pig hunts. Much like how the African conservation model works, this is attaching monetary value to the feral hogs. As long as the hogs are valuable, the population will grow. In other words, if people are paying me to take them hog hunting, I am incentivized to make sure the there will always be hogs to hunt to keep my income stream alive. This seems to be counterproductive to the goal of eliminating an invasive species that is destructive to the ecosystem and agriculture.

So, I'm willing to bet, this move isn't to stop the hogs from being "educated" as the author claims. It is probably to prevent the booming hog hunting industry from moving into Kentucky. That's just my completely uneducated opinion on the subject.

If you had hogs on your property you would realize they dont need humans for the population to grow. We eliminate around 300 per year through a variety of methods and I have to say all it does is keep the population stable. They reproduce so quickly that outside of poison or biological warfare I don't believe eradication is possible. How many $3000 do you think people will actually buy, then pay to bait properly and then find the time to work. This legislation is a way for a bureaucrat to pat themselves on the back and in my opinion has little to no chance of success.

 

[503]

Wherever I hunt if I see a pig I shoot it. The dnr can f off.

 

[Cheesehead]

If you had hogs on your property you would realize they dont need humans for the population to grow. We eliminate around 300 per year through a variety of methods and I have to say all it does is keep the population stable. They reproduce so quickly that outside of poison or biological warfare I don't believe eradication is possible. How many $3000 do you think people will actually buy, then pay to bait properly and then find the time to work. This legislation is a way for a bureaucrat to pat themselves on the back and in my opinion has little to no chance of success.

My point was not that there are people who are actively trying to increase the hog population, rather I was proposing the idea that as long as people can make money letting others hunt the hogs, they have no incentive to do EVERYTHING necessary to actually reduce the population. As a few in this thread who do deal with this problem have stated, that is exactly what is needed.

Now, I have no idea if this proposal in Kentucky will have the desired effect, but I would guess it won't because nothing government comes up with seems to work as intended.

 

[NE 7x57]

So far we don't have hogs here that I know of. But if I saw some I'd shoot them and keep my mouth shut about it. They are a plague on agriculture.

 

[BobT]

I live pretty close to the epicenter of Missouri's biggest wild hog problem area. The Missouri Department of Conservation has made some inroads on the population, no doubt but trapping and aerial gunning will not eradicate the hogs, it takes a pretty heavy toll on the younger animals but the older pigs are too smart/educated to succumb to the commonly used methods once they have been educated. The only method that will work on these older animals is hunting and it has been my experience that the most effective form of hunting is with trained hounds but even that isn't fool proof. I'm not sure the hunting ban on public land is the answer, I personally think there should be some sort of license requirement with 100% of the $ going toward eradication efforts. If there were a substantial financial incentive to kill the hogs (bounty) it might go a long way to help eliminate the problem. Unfortunately, in this area there are huge trust issues with the USDA and the MDC, a lot of which are well earned.

 

[Bigreach]

I'm more or less restating what others have said about it. Im from KY and about 30-40 mins from Land Between the Lakes one of national park that is the only place I know of that has any real hog issue I'm sure you could find a stray hog here or there in the eastern parts but I've been in west Ky my whole life and never seen or heard of anyone seeing one outside LBL. The story I've always heard is that people physically brought and released pigs in LBL thinking they could hunt them when there population grew. If thats true I dont know but I do think its odd they are really only seen there. As the name implies theres a lake on both sides of the park so they are "land locked" there but I'm sure if one wanted to leave he could. So apparently the hunting ban is for 2 reasons one easier to hunt them for the department and two keep people from releasing them. I could see both side of the argument but I honestly think they just dont want everyone driving around trying to hunt down hogs on 4-wheelers like you see on TV most wouldn't but one bad apple always ruin the batch.

 

[LivingTheDream]

I’ve seen this in Northern VA with the overpopulation of whitetail. They outlawed hunting in specific areas so that “special designated marksman” can be brought in to do the same thing. Translation…no money goes from the hunters to the government in the way of hunting licenses but the government PAYS a company to exterminate them. F’n nuts.

You know what is even crazier. They bait the deer and shoot at night to rack up the numbers!!!

 

[Challer]

Virginia encourages not hunting pigs to slow population spread. I doubt it helps at all

 

[tigris115]

I'm subscribed to the JagerPRO channel and I'm sold on trapping the entire sounder in 1 big corral trap.

That way, the whole social group is taken care of and you don't educate other pigs.

 

[sureshot375]

Not sure about the logic in the article. Kansas has a similar policy. Hog hunters are terrible about relocating hogs. Not allowing hog hunting takes away the incentive for people to break the law by intentionally transporting hogs.

This policy would not work well anywhere with a well established population.

 

[Hunt anything]

It’s been illegal to transport live hogs for many years here in Alabama, of course that doesn’t mean it’s not done but Ive heard the penalties are fairly severe so I don’t think it’s a huge issue down here anymore.

 

[thriller]

I'm subscribed to the JagerPRO channel and I'm sold on trapping the entire sounder in 1 big corral trap.

That way, the whole social group is taken care of and you don't educate other pigs.

I have 3 of their traps and 3 pig brigs. Honestly I think the nets work a lot better when used properly. Also you don’t have to stay up all night. ( when you are trapping a sounder or 2 every week this matters)

 

[HankBuck]

Makes perfect sense…if you are a politician. They are looking to bring in companies to do the trapping, not to have landowners do it.

I’ve seen this in Northern VA with the overpopulation of whitetail. They outlawed hunting in specific areas so that “special designated marksman” can be brought in to do the same thing. Translation…no money goes from the hunters to the government in the way of hunting licenses but the government PAYS a company to exterminate them. F’n nuts.

Otherwise, the only way to keep feral hogs from spreading is to increase hunting and trapping of individuals and landowners.

@BeeMaa - New Jersey did the same thing to control Deer in the suburbs around Princeton, very wealthy area, and town hired company called “White Buffalo” to come in and shoot over a 100. Cost was $300 to $400 “Per Deer” and this was 20 years ago. I can believe that trapping Hogs is much more effective then hunting them but have No experience with Hogs. I do trap, and as smart as fox & coyote are - much easier to trap them then hunt them….remember a Trap is “working” 24/7 and as long as it’s set properly - eventually you get a catch. I would think that allowing Hogs to be shot-on-sight would also be helpful but chasing hogs with hounds or shooting them over bait might just spread them around, make them nocturnal, and possibly harder to trap. Outfitters that profit from Hog hunts have a conflict of interest and might not be really wanting to eradicate an animal they profit from. But, look at Coyotes - they’ve been trying to wipe them out for 200 years, trapping, shooting, poison, bounties paid —- and there are more then ever before !