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Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

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Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#101

In Texas we trap them, blow them up, shoot them from helicopters, and shoot them from quads while chasing them at 50mph. They're too smart to shoot them from a standing position. I've seen packs of 15-20 running along together while riding my motorcycle along county roads in the middle of nowhere, San Saba County. But they normally stay out of sight; they're super smart. Good luck.

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Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamma irradiation is very effective at killing trichinosis in swine flesh and is approved for this purpose in America.

A cobalt source for the home ? That's plainly nuts. In Europe they dealt very successfully with trichinosis by inspecting pig carcasses. But I have no idea if you can take a muscle sample from a porker you shot yourself to your local large-animal veterinarian to see if it's trichinotic. (In rural areas they just might that service - back then in my home village we had that pharmacist who was a devoted mushroom hunter…

In Germany at least inspection is mandatory, even if you've hunted for personal use.

Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#104
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah here is the issue, feral pig meat isn’t really pork the way most people know it. It’s gamey and often parasite ridden.

I've eaten wild board and it's gamey but tasty, a relative often does salami from a mix of wild board and axis deer. But I understand that feral and wild boards are different.

I've had Wild Boar in Borneo with the tribe that was many years ago the "head hunter" and "poison blow dart" tribes we know of from yore... Super fatty, greasy and gamey.

Washed down with the alcohol they drink in thee Borneo Jungles, which is a certain leaf fermented in human spit.

An experience, yes. Not one I'd seek out again, but a great memory.

Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#105

The solution is to eat them. It's humane and it's free range pork. Let rural butchers test and certify the meat and sell it to local restaurants as a super premium product, then leverage the now all electronic game tag system for supply chain management. The only thing standing in the way of solving the feral pig problem is the attitudes of the urban governing class toward people capable of hunting and our histrionic…

Just hunt them. You can't eat them all without going to huge expense having all-terrain refrigerator trucks to pick them up with. Vultures and other animals and just nature will take care of the carcasses. That's what people do here in Texas, where we have the largest wild pig population in the U.S., and it's a big big deal. There are hog hunting festivals. I've only ever seen videos of this, but this is one of those cases where an AR-15 is one of the most excellent firearms for hunting.

Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#106

In Texas we trap them, blow them up, shoot them from helicopters, and shoot them from quads while chasing them at 50mph. They're too smart to shoot them from a standing position. I've seen packs of 15-20 running along together while riding my motorcycle along county roads in the middle of nowhere, San Saba County. But they normally stay out of sight; they're super smart. Good luck.

I've seen videos of hunting them from sitting positions. It's... scary, because they can run at you, so you'd best have large magazines.

Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#107

In Texas we trap them, blow them up, shoot them from helicopters, and shoot them from quads while chasing them at 50mph. They're too smart to shoot them from a standing position. I've seen packs of 15-20 running along together while riding my motorcycle along county roads in the middle of nowhere, San Saba County. But they normally stay out of sight; they're super smart. Good luck.

Shooting from quads sounds very dangerous (for the shooter).

There's lots of videos of it on youtube.

Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah here is the issue, feral pig meat isn’t really pork the way most people know it. It’s gamey and often parasite ridden.

This is true. You don't kill feral pigs for meat, you kill them for the same reason you kill rats. It's not the kind of meat you'd eat if you had any other choice.

Wild pig meat tastes fine if the animal is young, fit, and healthy. It is very lean and tough, I did an 18 hour slow cook and it as pretty good.

Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#109
post #45

> [The] reality is still that outside of the Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, there are no meaningful opportunities to hunt wild pigs, which is not allowed in Ontario and Quebec In the southern United States it’s open season on wild pigs to keep the population under control. In at least Texas, you can take a machine gun mounted to a helicopter to go hog hunting: https://www.helibacon.com/texa…

I'm a gun owner and support controlled hunting both for needed food for some people and population control when done properly. But beware perverse incentives and proper management. There have been plenty of articles and research about use of incentives and industry for dealing with invasive species, not just the feral pig problem but many others (nutria and lionfish for example [0]). And states that have made hunting…

This is nonsense. No farmer or rancher in Texas wants feral hogs, and no one in Texas tries to promote feral hog populations. We have something like 4 million feral hogs. The problem is that avid 1 hunter can take out 20-30 in one night, but they don't go out to do it every night, and there's not enough feral hog hunters to make a dent.

Feral hogs cause enormous amounts of damage, and there's no hope of hunting or trapping them down to manageable numbers much less zero.

Re: Researchers are trying to mitigate the spread of wild pigs in Canada

#110

> [The] reality is still that outside of the Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, there are no meaningful opportunities to hunt wild pigs, which is not allowed in Ontario and Quebec In the southern United States it’s open season on wild pigs to keep the population under control. In at least Texas, you can take a machine gun mounted to a helicopter to go hog hunting: https://www.helibacon.com/texa…

Sport hunting doesn't help keep the population down though: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-has-a-feral-hog-...

| But if you just shoot one, the rest scatter.

But you don't shoot one. You shoot most of them. That requires thermal optics, semi-automatic rifles, high capacity magazines (and lots of them), ATVs or helicopters or well-planned stands with a good view of a clearing that hogs might hang out in at night.

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