Helicopter Pig Hunting

[Boba Fett]

But rabbits are cute. You're a horrible horrible monster rcmodel. Like...a terrorist or something... Just kidding. A pest is a pest and you gotta do what you gotta do.

That was was a pretty interesting link. My parents are from Kansas...I should ask them if they or my grandparents ever did that.

Reminds me of Whacking Day from the Simpsons

 

[fireman 9731]

Its better they hunt them like this now, then to have our tax dollars do it later on!

 

[rondog]

When I was a boy, our part of the country was over-run with an exploding jackrabbit population that was eating the farm & ranch land bare to the dirt.
Then the wind blew the dirt away.

They held jackrabbit drives where all the farmers, wives, and kids like me would line up and chase them into a fenced-in pen.
Then beat them to death with clubs.

Hows that for Humane?

http://www.kshs.org/portraits/jackrabbit_drives.htm

It would probably work for feral hogs too, but the hogs would eat the kids!

rc

I grew up in western OK, and I remember my parents and other relatives telling me about the rabbit drives. Pretty hard to find jackrabbits nowadays.

 

[ChefKristian]

The opposite is true - there are so few private hunting lands in Texas, and so many millions of people in the cities, that demand for hunting and hunting lands through the roof in that state - you could find more than enough hunters and trappers to kill / trap them even charging a fee, that their numbers could dip to within reasonable levels - easily, if you're within 3 hours drive of Houston, Austin, Dallas, or San Antonio, or even smaller cities. LET ALONE what you could accomplish if you didn't charge the hunters. And guess what? Letting hunters & trappers hunt free STILL costs less than paying these trigger-happy idiots with a helicopter.

Try to guess how much of Texas is NOT within a 3 hour drive of a major city...

I've said my piece now, and won't be chiming in again. But you either have a conscience and morals - or you don't. No amount of "crop damage" or "land damage" can justify this cruelty. Continuing to insist that it does demonstrates the number of sociopaths in our society, which is frightening, frankly.

And what proof do you have that this is economically viable? NONE...

Do you think that of all the farmer's out there experiencing this problem want "hundreds" of people traipsing through there land? I sure as heck wouldn't want it if I was a landowning farmer.

And you have the audacity to say that a farmer should sell their land and get a regular job like the rest of "us?" HOW DARE YOU, SIR... I am sure your vegetables will grow themselves. I am sure that once the vegetables have grown themselves, they will also have the ability to self harvest.

Seriously? I would think that a person who calls himself a doctor would have the capacity of thought to think of all the parameters of an argument, rather than spout the diarrhea that is coming forth from your finger tips...

Again I say, the only stupidity is narrow mindedness...

You are completely egotistical. This problem does not affect you AT ALL. Perhaps if you were losing tens of thousands of dollars every year, your tune would change...

The fact of the matter is that farm land is being overrun. Feral hogs DESTROY ECOSYSTEMS. Once and ecosystem has been destroyed, it can take decades to restore balance.

You claim that hunting needs to be humane and ethical... What about bow hunting? It's been around for thousands of years. I have seen MANY hunting shows that feature bow hunting where the animal that was shot ran around for several minutes until it died. And I have shot a few animals that did not die right away. How is that humane? How is trophy hunting humane? Hunting for the purpose of killing the BEST of the herd... Is that humane?

AND THEN THE COUP D'GRACE.... You liken this video to the ATROCITIES of Timothy McVeigh? Really? Timothy McVeigh... He murdered CHILDREN. He murdered INNOCENT people. I hope Karma slaps you in the face.

 

[plumberroy]

Riddle me this: Why is it wrong for humans to cause the suffering of animals, yet it is completely acceptable for other animals to hurt other animals?

Humans know the diference of right and wrong animal don't

 

[DWFan]

Quote: "did to the bison herds of the Great Plains."
Quote: "Yea, but one feral pig is way smarter then a whole heard of Buffalo put together. You can't set in one place and kill a whole herd of pigs without ever moving."

Well duh. You mean a hunter can't hunt from a tree stand, waiting for the animal to wander close enough to take a shot and might actually have to get down on the ground and stalk his prey? Strange, some of us already do that. It is called hunting after all. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of bison killed by both the Plains Indians and the "Great White Hunters" that followed were taken from horseback and by stalking on foot than the more colorful, but far less accurate, depictions of shooting from trains or a stationary wagon pulled into the middle of a grazing herd. Professional hunters and Native Americans were known to track a single herd over 100 miles, culling as they went until the herd was gone or they simply had gotten all they wanted.

 

[schlockinz]

Pigs reproduce faster than buffalo

 

[hossfly]

Pigs reproduce faster than buffalo

Much much faster and that's the whole thing.

Sorry. My sympathies are with the farmers and I don't think Dr. Winslow is aware of just how much damage feral hogs do. They truly can get to the point of needing drastic measures.

 

[Pony Express]

Sorry. My sympathies are with the farmers and I don't think Dr. Winslow is aware of just how much damage feral hogs do. They truly can get to the point of needing drastic measures.

+1. It's a shame that some of the pigs die a slow death, but lets consider this: Wild animals don't die in their sleep. This is a myth that every tree hugging anti-hunting person I have ever met has firmly believed in. They watch Bambi, and then think that Deer (or squirrel, rabbit, or anything fuzzy and cute) live lives very similar to human's lives. They think they live with their families and sleep every night in a warm den with worries at all. However, most animals die slow and painful anyways, disease, starvation, being eaten by other animals, etc. There's no falling peacefully to sleep and dying painlessly.

Now I come to my next point. The only animals most people seem to care about are the cute fuzzy ones. Pigs, not so much in this case, but the point is either all of it is okay, or none of it is. There aren't nearly as many anti-fishing groups as there are anti-hunting groups. Why? Because deer, rabbits, and squirrels are cute. Which would you rather have happen to you: take a nice bite of delicious worm and then OH GOOD LORD! THERE'S A METAL HOOK GOING THROUGH MY MOUTH! NOW I"M BEING DRAGGED BY IT! NOW IM DROWING!! or by being shot? Generally, Fish die much more unpleasant deaths than game.
Either killing all animals is totally OK, or no animals at all.

I am of the persuasion that animals fall under Man's domain, and it is not a sin, or "wrong" to kill them. Regardless of the motive, as long as you kill your game with respect for mother nature, and the animals, and leave only your footprints, there is nothing wrong with killing animals. Intentionally causing them to suffer is a different issue.

whew...I'm out.

 

[kyle1974]

I"m glad "Dr. Tad" responded... only took him two days to come up with a response.. must have been well planed...

since you obviousy have a bias induced reading comprehension issue, I'll explain it again... the number of hogs killed by typical hunting methods over several months would probbaly not equal what these guys in helicopters can do within a couple days time.

Most farmers are not going to deal with dozens of people that want to shoot a pig, deal with the coordination, deal with feeders, deal with taking payments, setting up hunts, etc... to sell hunts for $100-300 per person, and MAYBE kill 15-25 hogs per week... the idea here is to remove a cost prohibitive problem, not start up a side business killing pigs, while they are destroying property at the same time.

Hogs are intelligent, buffalo were stupid. That's one of the reasons why hogs are extraordinarily prolific in the age of the most modern hunting weapons and techniques even known to man, and buffalo were nearly killed out with 200 year old technology. I have had groups of 20-30 hogs coming into areas I've hunted, and after shooting 2 or 3 of them, they will disapper for weeks, sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't come back...and As mentioned above, they can reproduce much faster as well.

trying to correlate the human idea of "suffering at death" is irrelevant to how animals die. Animals aren't thinking "oh my god,,, is this it? is this the end?" comparing the ability to put a pig's heart into a human..so what? Tehy can probably attach a pigs leg to a human, it doesn't make it human... it's still a pig's leg...

Maybe once you're done here, you can find some bowhunting threads to complain about animals suffering too long before death, or perhaps start a consulting service providing data on comprehensive pain levels experienced by animals before death when shot at different ranges....

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

I would rather just call it what it is - vermin/pest control - than use "hunting" as a euphemism.

 

[paintballdude902]

looks fun

do we know it was an ar-15? it may have been an AR-10 .308 is plenty big for hogs

 

[X-Rap]

Hey Doc I got an analogy for ya, Elmer Fudd trying to kill Bugs Bunny X4,000,000.
Hows that.
I didn't even have to involk the worst homegrown terrorist in American history.

 

[dubbleA]

My family has a helicopter service and one of the things we do are preadator and hog control. This is very effective way in reducing their numbers.....way more than trapping or hunting them will ever do.

Have seen a couple of hundred hogs get removed from the breeding in 4 hrs of flying. In the month of August we recorded 3000 pigs removed around the rice fields of Bay City Tx. That's an average of a 100 hogs a day. Yes, it helped the farmers save some money in the long run. Sending out elmer fudd and his buddies do very little to even put a dent in reducing hog numbers.

I could go on and on about the feral hog problems in Texas but there are always a few that have the " well it's not happening in my back yard so so what" mentality so they dont care.

PS, it's $400 an hour for a R-22, a pilot, ammo and shooter/gunner. It's a small price to pay for farmers and ranchers that are loosing millions upon million of dollars every year to damages cause by feral swine.

Around here the only good hog is a dead one. The pigs are not wasted either, they go back into mother nature as food or fertilizer for the coyotes, buzzards, mice, bugs, etc

 

[dubbleA]

looks fun

do we know it was an ar-15? it may have been an AR-10 .308 is plenty big for hogs

By far the AR platform in .223's are used. Low recoil, ease of optics mounting, accuracy, lower cost and availibilty are the parts of the equation. 12 ga buckshot is sometimes used but it's not that effective at distance, cost and recoil is much much higher.

Let me remind folks, this is not hunting my any stretch of the imagination, it's killing/maming ferals hogs to reduce the populations plain and simple. It's fun for the 1st week but like any thing job after the newness wears off it's a job. You had better have some insurance as it's a dangerous job and a strong stomach.

 

[Fremmer]

So sick of "oh the poor farmers & ranchers..." Don't like having to overcome problems that mother nature deals out to you? Then sell your land and come to the city and get a job like the rest of us.

Dude, every single farmer or rancher that I know does more work by noon than a white-collar guy from a city does in an entire week.

Anyway, a varmint is a varmint. Kill 'em all and take care of the problem. Thank god landowners in Texas are still allowed to take care of their problems on their land instead of having to open it up to an invasion of a bunch of city slickers who can't shoot worth a snot, anyway.

 

[X-Rap]

DubbleA I made an assumption and maybe you can clear it up for me.
When these hogs are shoy out in a crop field are they picked up and dumped on fallow gland so they don't present a problem for harvesting and baling equipment?
In the video it looked like they were shot over hay and grain crops both.

 

[schlockinz]

But back to hogs, kill em all.

 

[DWFan]

"Pigs reproduce faster than buffalo."

No dispute there. However NO species can reproduce if you remove the female population. It wouldn't take "hundreds" of hunters to do the job either, but even if it did, you could get that many by simply asking the folks on a half-dozen websites (this one included) that have bought surplus Mosin-Nagant rifles if they want to use their weapons to participate in a no-limit, no hunting fee, week-long hog culling. A simple ad in a local paper would probably get you more requests than you need. You pick the participants and give them a date and let them organize everything else. The idea that hunters "trampling over the property" would cause more damage than the hogs do is....well, I won't say it. Most hunters I know are pretty responsible about possible damage and make sure they make as little mess as possible. If you have any doubts about someone, deny their permission; it's not that hard to tell who the respectful hunters are compared to the "trigger-happy, shoot at anything that moves" types.
If you look at the places advertising organized hog hunts, you'll see waiting times of up to a year. A free hunt would get more attention than you know what to do with.

 

[sfc_mark]

did to the bison herds of the Great Plains.

Yea, but one feral pig is way smarter then a whole heard of Buffalo put together.

You can't set in one place and kill a whole herd of pigs without ever moving.

And Bison breed once per year, one calf. Swine breed 1-3 times per year, average litter size 8-14.

These farmers/ranchers were there, engaging in farming/ranching then the hogs showed up. Are they supposed to just give up on their life's work because it became inconvenient in the face of an infestation of vermin? That's like burning down your house if it gets bugs (that's an analogy).

Now I'm not sure about TX, but in GA if you allow someone to hunt on your land, a liability waiver is not valid. That means if one of your carefully screened hunters (yeah, right) happens to shoot another of the dozens (hundreds?) of hunters lining up to pay you for hunting rights, YOU are liable. That should be a very sobering thought to anyone considering that course of action.

Is this sporting? Maybe not. Do I have the stomach for it? Maybe not. Should it be allowed? These people are at war for their livelihood against an invasive, extremely destructive species...absolutely!

 

[kyle1974]

right... because a bunch of guys with "precision" mosin nagants shooting for a week would remove about 3% of a hog's population... until the hogs wised up after the first day, and hauled on over to property they weren't being shot at...

unless you've had a place covered up with hogs, you have no idea how hard they are to hunt, and thin numbers by conventional hunting... it's not possible.

 

[Boba Fett]

Humans know the diference of right and wrong animal don't

Thanks for taking me out of context plumberroy.

To quite myself in context:

Riddle me this: Why is it wrong for humans to cause the suffering of animals, yet it is completely acceptable for other animals to hurt other animals?

Answer: it isn't wrong. This is our world and God gave it to us. We are to be good stewards of it, but it is for our use and benefit. That means, when possible, be humane. When there is a pest, do what is necessary.

My point being, an animal suffering is an animal suffering regardless of human or nature being the cause.

And as I went, I was saying that it isn't wrong for humans to cause the suffering of animals, but we should be humane when possible. Meaning one should not cause malicious suffering for their own sadistic pleasuere.


But this is about getting rid of a pest.

Do it as humanely as possible and as swiftly as necessary. The two don't always mix, but I think the guys in the video did a pretty good job. They made several passes, when it was possible, on some animals they had only wounded with their first shot and put several more into them. On some occasions, like when there were 5 or 15 of the darn pests, they just had to hit as many as possible.

And I believe the shooter did a pretty good job, scoring some very nice and humane hits on moving targets. Admittedly, some shots aren't anything to be proud of, and were I hunting for food and sport, I wouldn't make such shots intentionally. Hunting for pest control of this nature is completely different, and I'd have no problem doing exactly what they did with the lone exception being that I don't think I would be as good a shot as he was.

 

[Fremmer]

Fremmer, seriously?

Nope, I was wrong.

 

[Boba Fett]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not to bash doctors or anything (I have known a number of very good ones...some are even family members), but one thing I was told by a doctor was this regarding private planes:

Beechcraft airplanes are often purchased by doctors. They are usually very expensive planes for the class of plane they are in. And they are known as "doctor killers" because doctors have the money to buy them, but not the time to learn to fly them properly and they get killed.


So I could see doctors having very expensive firearms, scopes, land, etc. and not being very good with them simply because they don't devote the necessary time but have the necessary money.

Again, this certainly doesn't apply to all doctors and I am in no way bashing doctors. Most walks of life have their little quirks or stereotypes with a grain of truth to them. Engineers and IT come to my mind (I work IT and I have several friends who are engineers...but we get out to the range fairly often and most of us go hunting when we can find the time).

 

[DWFan]

I must admit, Kyle1974, that I never thought I'd see the words "precision" and "mosin-nagant" used in the same sentence, but then I never thought that anyone would imply they were inferior as a hunting weapon either. They might be crude, but they are hardly ineffective.
You admit that out of a group of "20-30", you managed to get "2 or 3". Mathmatically then, an organized group of 5-7 hunters should be able to take out 15-20 of the same group. That's far more than any 3%. You got 10% by yourself after all. As I said, only the females need to be removed to totally eliminate reproduction.
Since you haven't a clue how long I've been hunting, or what type, or what weapons I use, I'll not comment about how I "have no idea how hard they are to hunt".