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this is the same article i posted before, but now is being covered by a Washington newspaper in the Tricities area. (about 50 miles north of oregon border)
Oregon officials hope to eradicate wild pigs
The Associated Press
Capital Press agriculture news | capitalpress.com
SALEM, Ore. Washington state is monitoring the wild pig populations in Oregon, where the fish and wildlife department has ordered farmers to determine the size of the destructive pig populations on their land and get rid of them.
The Oregon fish and wildlife department knows feral pigs are a problem. As an invasive species, they threaten crops and cause headaches for farmers.
The state doesn't yet know how big of a problem. That's because most feral pigs in the state live in the low-precipitation private land. But they're inching closer to the high-value crop land, and neighboring states in the Pacific Northwest are worried.
Feral pigs, like most problems in Oregon, get blamed on California. The pigs are game mammals in the state, meaning hunters have to get tags to shoot them. In the meantime, they root up cropland, destroy hillsides and generally wreak havoc on the environment.
A bill passed last year in Oregon requires landowners to trap or shoot any feral swine known to roam their land, or at a minimum allow someone else to shoot or trap it.
"Whether or not we'll be successful really depends on private landowners," said Keith Kohl of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "They are on private land and we can't do it without the landowners' cooperation."
The hairy pigs are native to Europe but have spread to every continent except Antarctica, usually introduced by humans.
The pigs prefer to forage in areas around rivers or streams and can hinder timber growth, tear up irrigated fields, damage white oak stands and erode stream banks. Though mostly vegetarian, they will eat about anything, even small mammals, such as fawns or ewes.
Kohl said feral pigs make it to Oregon in three ways: migration, escapes from exotic-animal ranches and hunters, who set them loose to shoot for sport.
Before the changes in the Legislature, some Oregon ranchers charged money to let people hunt them on their land.
Wendy Brown, executive coordinator of the Washington Invasive Species Council, told The Capital Press there probably isn't a feral swine population in Washington. But the state is concerned about the possible arrival of the pigs from California, Idaho and Oregon.
"The environmental impacts of feral swine are enormous," she told the publication. "The impacts to the agriculture industry are potentially really big as well."
A group of between 50 and 100 feral pigs in southwestern Idaho was culled to 20 through surveillance and tracking in the area, and Oregon hopes to duplicate that success.
Biologists have been warning lawmakers for years that the wild pig populations can expand quickly and with little notice, endangering many Oregon agricultural moneymakers, from timber to wine and alfalfa.
In 2001, the state classified feral pigs as predators and wildlife animals. That made it illegal to let them run loose and legal for people to kill them on their property as a nuisance without a permit.
Before the change, they were considered livestock and couldn't be killed. To hunt the pigs on public land, people must get a state hunting license.
Kohl said other states allowed the pig populations to grow out of control, and now may be past help.
"We're not there yet," he said, "and we'd like to keep it from getting that way."
TEXAS has passed a new law allowing feral pigs to be hunted and killed from a HELI, HOW FUN WOULD THAT BE.
God Bless Texas
Texas "Pork Choppers" Soon to Be Open for Business
* by Becca Aaronson
* 5/13/2011
James Stone's ranch outside of Lockhart, TX on May 10, 2011. Hogs have hobbled Stone's property, ruining pasture land, killing trees and damaging fences. He estimates taking out over 500 hogs during the last three years.
When state Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, introduced a bill last legislative session to allow licensed hunters to shoot feral hogs from helicopters, Texas lawmakers jokingly passed out pork chopper buttons.
They're not laughing anymore.
More than 2 million strong statewide, hogs are increasingly encroaching on residential communities -- destroying any lawn or fence in their path and, with sharp tusks, occasionally injuring an unlucky person in their way. Even urban lawmakers are now taking the threat seriously.
They're now uprooting tombstones in the city cemeteries, golf courses and coming into residential areas, said Miller, R-Stephenville, who successfully shepherded the bill through the state House and Senate. What we're trying to do is control the population.
If, or when, the governor signs the bill into law, hog hunting from helicopters a practice currently allowed only for some landowners would be legal for any licensed hunter willing to buy a seat in the air. Texas lawmakers say the legislation could curb the $400 million in agricultural damage feral hogs cause annually and deter their spread into urban areas.
The Tribune thanks our Supporting Sponsors
(Check out our analysis of Texas Parks and Wildlife data to track demand for helicopter hunting by landowners, how many hogs Texans have already killed from the sky, and landowners' reported reasons for needing to kill feral hogs.)
Feral hogs cause extensive damage to agriculture and the native ecosystem, say biologists at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The biologists maintain that sport hunting is beneficial because it brings in revenue for landowners, helps control overpopulation and, well, the meat is tasty.
They have almost nothing nice to say about the feral hogs: The animals uproot crops, pastures for cattle feed, fences and the native habitats of ground-nesting birds and reptiles. And the hogs will eat almost anything: corn seedlings, peanut plants, peach trees, bird eggs and baby calves. They can also spread disease to domestic pigs and humans, and they foul watering holes.
James F. Stone, a rancher in Lockhart, estimated that he had killed 500 hogs over the last three years on his property 80 since January. And they are vicious.
They're dog killers, Stone said. That's what we call them.
A few of his kills have weighed more than 600 pounds.
As a non-native species, hogs can be hunted year-round in Texas with no limit, although a hunting permit is required. Texas landowners commonly capitalize on hog invasions by selling permission to hunt them from the ground on their land.
The helicopter bill would allow licensed hunters to pay for a helicopter and, with the landowners' permission, hunt hogs and coyotes from the sky.
Left unchecked, the number of feral hogs in Texas could increase 18 to 20 percent per year, said Dr. Billy Higginbotham, a professor at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. In five years, hog numbers could double.
The common and illegal practice of releasing feral and domestic hogs for off-season sport hunting, combined with hogs' increasing access to food left by ranchers for deer, has created a perfect storm for a population boom, Higginbotham said.
Jay Smith, a pilot and owner of Smith Helicopters, said he had seen a boom in property damage, too. I've seen holes that they've done that you can bury a four-wheeler in, said Smith, who has flown helicopters for 33 years, specializing in land surveying, cattle management and predator control.
Smith supports Miller's bill but said safety is a concern. What we have to watch out for is the people that get in the helicopter with us and the way they handle the guns, he said.
Prices for aerial hunting trips range from $300 to $600 per hour. Other species, like coyotes, can already be hunted by helicopter. Demand is greatest in South Texas, where hunters can easily aim over the open rural land as helicopters fly slowly and low to the ground.
Although using poison to control hog population is illegal in the state, the Texas Department of Agriculture is financing research on a toxin used to control feral hogs in Australia. Justin Foster, a researcher at the Kerr Wildlife Management Area in south central Texas, said Australian research showed that hogs were uniquely sensitive to sodium nitrite, and he added that researchers were investigating its effects on nontarget species in Texas, like deer and raccoons.
But you also need to think safety, Foster said. Does it kill everything else that consumes it, or does it not?
Oregon officials hope to eradicate wild pigs
The Associated Press
Capital Press agriculture news | capitalpress.com
SALEM, Ore. Washington state is monitoring the wild pig populations in Oregon, where the fish and wildlife department has ordered farmers to determine the size of the destructive pig populations on their land and get rid of them.
The Oregon fish and wildlife department knows feral pigs are a problem. As an invasive species, they threaten crops and cause headaches for farmers.
The state doesn't yet know how big of a problem. That's because most feral pigs in the state live in the low-precipitation private land. But they're inching closer to the high-value crop land, and neighboring states in the Pacific Northwest are worried.
Feral pigs, like most problems in Oregon, get blamed on California. The pigs are game mammals in the state, meaning hunters have to get tags to shoot them. In the meantime, they root up cropland, destroy hillsides and generally wreak havoc on the environment.
A bill passed last year in Oregon requires landowners to trap or shoot any feral swine known to roam their land, or at a minimum allow someone else to shoot or trap it.
"Whether or not we'll be successful really depends on private landowners," said Keith Kohl of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "They are on private land and we can't do it without the landowners' cooperation."
The hairy pigs are native to Europe but have spread to every continent except Antarctica, usually introduced by humans.
The pigs prefer to forage in areas around rivers or streams and can hinder timber growth, tear up irrigated fields, damage white oak stands and erode stream banks. Though mostly vegetarian, they will eat about anything, even small mammals, such as fawns or ewes.
Kohl said feral pigs make it to Oregon in three ways: migration, escapes from exotic-animal ranches and hunters, who set them loose to shoot for sport.
Before the changes in the Legislature, some Oregon ranchers charged money to let people hunt them on their land.
Wendy Brown, executive coordinator of the Washington Invasive Species Council, told The Capital Press there probably isn't a feral swine population in Washington. But the state is concerned about the possible arrival of the pigs from California, Idaho and Oregon.
"The environmental impacts of feral swine are enormous," she told the publication. "The impacts to the agriculture industry are potentially really big as well."
A group of between 50 and 100 feral pigs in southwestern Idaho was culled to 20 through surveillance and tracking in the area, and Oregon hopes to duplicate that success.
Biologists have been warning lawmakers for years that the wild pig populations can expand quickly and with little notice, endangering many Oregon agricultural moneymakers, from timber to wine and alfalfa.
In 2001, the state classified feral pigs as predators and wildlife animals. That made it illegal to let them run loose and legal for people to kill them on their property as a nuisance without a permit.
Before the change, they were considered livestock and couldn't be killed. To hunt the pigs on public land, people must get a state hunting license.
Kohl said other states allowed the pig populations to grow out of control, and now may be past help.
"We're not there yet," he said, "and we'd like to keep it from getting that way."
TEXAS has passed a new law allowing feral pigs to be hunted and killed from a HELI, HOW FUN WOULD THAT BE.
God Bless Texas
Texas "Pork Choppers" Soon to Be Open for Business
* by Becca Aaronson
* 5/13/2011
James Stone's ranch outside of Lockhart, TX on May 10, 2011. Hogs have hobbled Stone's property, ruining pasture land, killing trees and damaging fences. He estimates taking out over 500 hogs during the last three years.
When state Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, introduced a bill last legislative session to allow licensed hunters to shoot feral hogs from helicopters, Texas lawmakers jokingly passed out pork chopper buttons.
They're not laughing anymore.
More than 2 million strong statewide, hogs are increasingly encroaching on residential communities -- destroying any lawn or fence in their path and, with sharp tusks, occasionally injuring an unlucky person in their way. Even urban lawmakers are now taking the threat seriously.
They're now uprooting tombstones in the city cemeteries, golf courses and coming into residential areas, said Miller, R-Stephenville, who successfully shepherded the bill through the state House and Senate. What we're trying to do is control the population.
If, or when, the governor signs the bill into law, hog hunting from helicopters a practice currently allowed only for some landowners would be legal for any licensed hunter willing to buy a seat in the air. Texas lawmakers say the legislation could curb the $400 million in agricultural damage feral hogs cause annually and deter their spread into urban areas.
The Tribune thanks our Supporting Sponsors
(Check out our analysis of Texas Parks and Wildlife data to track demand for helicopter hunting by landowners, how many hogs Texans have already killed from the sky, and landowners' reported reasons for needing to kill feral hogs.)
Feral hogs cause extensive damage to agriculture and the native ecosystem, say biologists at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The biologists maintain that sport hunting is beneficial because it brings in revenue for landowners, helps control overpopulation and, well, the meat is tasty.
They have almost nothing nice to say about the feral hogs: The animals uproot crops, pastures for cattle feed, fences and the native habitats of ground-nesting birds and reptiles. And the hogs will eat almost anything: corn seedlings, peanut plants, peach trees, bird eggs and baby calves. They can also spread disease to domestic pigs and humans, and they foul watering holes.
James F. Stone, a rancher in Lockhart, estimated that he had killed 500 hogs over the last three years on his property 80 since January. And they are vicious.
They're dog killers, Stone said. That's what we call them.
A few of his kills have weighed more than 600 pounds.
As a non-native species, hogs can be hunted year-round in Texas with no limit, although a hunting permit is required. Texas landowners commonly capitalize on hog invasions by selling permission to hunt them from the ground on their land.
The helicopter bill would allow licensed hunters to pay for a helicopter and, with the landowners' permission, hunt hogs and coyotes from the sky.
Left unchecked, the number of feral hogs in Texas could increase 18 to 20 percent per year, said Dr. Billy Higginbotham, a professor at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. In five years, hog numbers could double.
The common and illegal practice of releasing feral and domestic hogs for off-season sport hunting, combined with hogs' increasing access to food left by ranchers for deer, has created a perfect storm for a population boom, Higginbotham said.
Jay Smith, a pilot and owner of Smith Helicopters, said he had seen a boom in property damage, too. I've seen holes that they've done that you can bury a four-wheeler in, said Smith, who has flown helicopters for 33 years, specializing in land surveying, cattle management and predator control.
Smith supports Miller's bill but said safety is a concern. What we have to watch out for is the people that get in the helicopter with us and the way they handle the guns, he said.
Prices for aerial hunting trips range from $300 to $600 per hour. Other species, like coyotes, can already be hunted by helicopter. Demand is greatest in South Texas, where hunters can easily aim over the open rural land as helicopters fly slowly and low to the ground.
Although using poison to control hog population is illegal in the state, the Texas Department of Agriculture is financing research on a toxin used to control feral hogs in Australia. Justin Foster, a researcher at the Kerr Wildlife Management Area in south central Texas, said Australian research showed that hogs were uniquely sensitive to sodium nitrite, and he added that researchers were investigating its effects on nontarget species in Texas, like deer and raccoons.
But you also need to think safety, Foster said. Does it kill everything else that consumes it, or does it not?
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