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Title: With Hands and Hounds, Stalking Feral Hogs in Texas
Source:
NYT
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/u ... 1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Published: Oct 29, 2006
Author: TIM EATON
Post Date: 2006-10-29 01:30:37 by Morgana le Fay
Keywords: None
Views: 514
Comments: 18
ASPERMONT, Tex. — On a moonless October night, with the Milky Way staining the West Texas sky, a burly man in overalls turned off the engine of his mud-caked white Toyota truck. Yelps from coyotes and an owl’s hoot occasionally broke the silence. Then, from an open field, Bob Richardson heard the noise he had been awaiting. Four of his short-haired scent hounds, which had been released earlier, began to bark from the darkness. Mr. Richardson jumped out of the truck and freed a black pit bull from a cage on the truck’s flatbed. He chased after his pit bull into the darkness toward the barking hounds. He tripped in a wet ditch but kept running through the milo stalks. When he got to the baying dogs, the light on his miner’s hat revealed that the pit bull, trained for just this purpose, had clamped onto the face of a feral hog. As he had done thousands of times before, Mr. Richardson, 58, pounced on the snorting beast and tied its feet together, immobilizing it. Within minutes, he had loaded the animal barehanded into a cage. Mr. Richardson used to run through this brush land northwest of Abilene without any shoes, hence his nickname: Barefoot Bob. But when he worked for the fire department in Abilene, his bosses demanded he don footwear. Now, he wears sneakers, which he buys in bulk at Wal-Mart. A lot of people in rural Texas catch wild hogs, which can grow to several hundred pounds, and Mr. Richardson traps them like most others. But there is sometimes a twist to Mr. Richardson’s hunts — he spends a few nights a week cruising the dirt roads of Stonewall County, a place with more hogs than people, to run down the wild animals using only his dogs and his bare hands. “It’s for fun,” he said. It has also become lucrative as Europeans and an increasing number of Americans clamor for wild boar. Mr. Richardson said he made $28,000 last year selling live feral hogs. “I think it’s a great health-conscious niche market,” said Dick Koehler, one of Mr. Richardson’s customers and the vice president of Frontier Meats, based in Fort Worth. “It has real potential for growth.” Mr. Koehler said that about 60 percent of the processed hog meat from his plant ended up on the tables of fancy restaurants in Europe, but that its popularity was growing in the United States. Each year, his company ships more and more hog meat to American restaurants and specialty supermarkets to feed the demands for organic food, Mr. Koehler said. Even if the taste for wild boar gains a much wider following, there is little chance of overhunting the hogs any time soon. The animals were introduced to North America as a food source in 1539 by the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto, said Billy Higginbotham, a wildlife specialist with the Texas A&M Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Overton. During the 1800s and 1900s, escaped domestic pigs became feral, sprouted tusks and grew coarse black hair. They crossbred with Russian boars, brought to North America for food and sport. The resulting hybrid wild boar has spread across the country, increasing in number to an estimated four million in 39 states, Mr. Higginbotham said. The population of feral hogs has ballooned for a combination of reasons, Mr. Higginbotham said. For one, he said, they are intelligent animals. Also, they will eat just about anything and are highly adaptable to changing food sources. Wild pigs are prolific breeders. A sow can be ready for her first litter of four to six offspring within six months, and a mature sow can birth two litters a year, Mr. Higginbotham said. In Texas, hunters bait deer with 300 million pounds of corn annually, he said, and the hogs eat a large percentage of the bait. Hunters sometimes capture feral hogs and release them into areas of the state where they had not lived before. Wild hogs can bring new problems. In Texas alone, the aggressive, omnivorous and razor-toothed animals cause nearly $52 million in damage a year to farmland, livestock and pastures, according to the Texas Cooperative Extension. Jerry Eddins, the owner of the 10,000-acre J. Duke Ranch where Mr. Richardson hunts, is a serious quail hunter. Every year, he spreads grain to feed the birds, but hogs eat the bird food, along with whatever quail eggs they come across. “They eat anything. They really don’t have a natural predator,” Mr. Eddins said. “So, Barefoot Bob Richardson is the natural predator.”
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#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
We have the feral hogs on our farm in north Texas and have witnessed them chasing the cattle - totally amazing. After the first freeze this winter, my brother and I will attempt to thin the herd dramatically.
BLT's...mmm-good!
Making bacon with the other kind of gun made of steel. Sounds almost as fun as the other way to do this.
This "re-wilding" of America is out of control - here in a VERY urban area of Austin, we have white-tail deer, coyotes, at least one flock of turkeys, raccoons, 'possum, squirrel, and God only knows what other sort of critters eating Fluffy and Spot, destroying landscapes, and generally adding nothing of value to the 'hood. If the feral hogs finally arrive, perhaps the city "officials" will take notice, and take some action - but I doubt it.
Allot of development should be done less Draconian a fashion to allow humans, plants and other animals to co-exist with a semblance of balance. Most of the problems you note are caused by a lack of coherence to a natural ecosystem, and a human intolerance to share any part of the land with any other life form. Pigs are a huge problem because they are so adaptive and resilient. They cause huge problems where they have been introduced, and they not only plight human existence in an area, they destroy utterly other animals and much of the plant life around them. I see nothing wrong wit hunting animals that have no other check on their population.
It's not that I don't want to share with the critters, I just don't want them to eat, chew, gnaw, or otherwise have it all...if they would just help me out with a few thousand dollars each year for the unholy property taxes, that would be a plus for them, and me.
I sympathize and don't want to see anyone who makes a living on the land be forced off of it. What I am speaking of is how I can go to a friend's farm that is into perma-culture and turn the earth and see earthworms, humus, bugs and all sorts of life in the soil. Then you go across the property line to his neighbor's land and turn the earth and it is sandy and dead. This guy uses pesticides and petroleum based products and fertilizers to gain production out of the land. My friend has hedge rows and areas small critters have a chance to live in peace and his neighbor will herbicide even the smallest appearance of weeds. In Europe, wild ferrets, or polecats have taken out much of the rodent problem where they were killing trees retuning a predator prey balance to many areas now hunting polecats is highly controlled. We have a nutria problem locally and no predators taking them out as most of the predators have been murdered off. People have to be smarter and more compassionate to other life forms. If one plans and thinks about what they are doing, there are plenty of opportunities there to return life to an area from the level of the lowly earthworm to larger animals like raccoons, possums, and many other creatures.
hmmmm..$$ making venture?
My father worked for the SoilConservationService for thirty years (back when they were still the good guys) so I appreciate the old ways of existing with, and improving the land and its crops, vegetation, etc. Going on fourteen years now, this yard has been treated only with aeration, corn gluten meal, dried molasses, and such - over the years, several neighbors have taken note, and cancelled their chemical lawn and pest services and moved to a more sound, economical, and eco-friendly method of lawn care. It's just the right thing to do. imo
After the first freeze this winter, my brother and I will attempt to thin the herd dramatically. California hog killer I met was fond of the .257 Weatherby. He just rolled them then loaded them up.
The 28 large sounded OK, but hog-tying one of those suckers while poochie is biting his nose sounds shaky to me - especially considering tomorrow's my 60th, and I'm not really in the same condition as several decades ago...
He just rolled them then loaded them up. Some of the ones we saw will require at least a 7MMmag and a tractor with a lift on the three-point hydraulic thingie - they were huge, and their tusks looked wicked.
HOGZILLA!
I hate dressing out game that big. And I know I would contract out the butchering work after trying to do it myself on one deer one hunting season. I'm lucky to have all ten fingers after that.
Hunting guide Chris Griffin, at right, pretends to be victim of the legendary "Hogzilla" during the annual town festival Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004, in Alapaha, Ga., while children and adults ride on the float Griffin claims to have shot a 1,000 pound hog with 9-inch tusks, dubbed Hogzilla, on a plantation near Alapaha. Festival organizers decided to base the theme of this year's festival on the Hogzilla legend. (AP Photo/Elliott Minor)
I'm lucky to have all ten fingers after that. The secret to successful butchering is a reciprocating saw (SAWZALL) with a long wood blade. You remove extremities and quarter the deer and cut the quarters up on the board with a knife.
Hawgzilla! That's funny! The stuffed one looks like a giant rodent.
Maybe this is what's needed for me to get up to digital camera speed - nothing's done it to date, however.
Outstanding article - thanks.
#2. To: lodwick (#1)
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#3. To: lodwick (#1)
#4. To: who knows what evil. FM. all (#2)
#5. To: lodwick (#4)
#6. To: Ferret Mike (#5)
Most of the problems you note are caused by a lack of coherence to a natural ecosystem, and a human intolerance to share any part of the land with any other life form.
#7. To: lodwick (#6)
#8. To: lodwick (#1)
Each year, his company ships more and more hog meat to American restaurants and specialty supermarkets to feed the demands for organic food,
#9. To: Ferret Mike (#7)
What I am speaking of is how I can go to a friend's farm that is into perma-culture and turn the earth and see earthworms, humus, bugs and all sorts of life in the soil.
#10. To: lodwick (#1)
We have the feral hogs on our farm in north Texas and have witnessed them chasing the cattle - totally amazing.
#11. To: christine (#8)
hmmmm..$$ making venture?
#12. To: HOUNDDAWG (#10)
California hog killer I met was fond of the .257 Weatherby.
#13. To: lodwick (#12)
Some of the ones we saw will require at least a 7MMmag and a tractor with a lift on the three-point hydraulic thingie - they were huge, and their tusks looked wicked.
#14. To: lodwick (#12)
#15. To: HOUNDDAWG (#13)
(Edited)
HOGZILLA!
#16. To: Ferret Mike (#14)
I hate dressing out game that big. And I know I would contract out the butchering work after trying to do it myself on one deer one hunting season.
#17. To: Ferret Mike (#15)
#18. To: HOUNDDAWG. FM. all (#13)
Love hogzilla.
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