FERAL HOG “APOCALYPSE” DELAYED

  

There will be an apparent delay in the "feral hog apocalypse" that had been planned by Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

The delay comes after the maker of poisoned hog bait pulled its product from use in Texas.

Miller blamed "lawyers, environmental radicals and the misinformed" for the decision by Scimetrics.

Kaput Feral Hog Bait is laced with warfarin, a blood-thinner that in large doses causes hemorrhaging.

Miller said he respected the company's decision but called it "just another kick in the teeth for rural Texas."

The Texas House had passed a bill calling for more study on controlling feral hog populations with the help of pesticides. The bill is pending in the state Senate.

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service estimates Texas agriculture suffers about $52 million in damage annually from the hogs.

 

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12 Comments

  1. If there was an easy solution it would have been done already. No one has the time or man power to hunt/trap enough hogs year round to make a difference. They reproduce too quickly for the average landowner to stay ahead of them. The poison will probably kill a bunch but that comes with problems also. Not sure what the effects are on non target species but there definitely will be some, and that needs to be carefully looked at before it is legalized. Donating the meat in a commercial setting has problems as well. The FDA would want to know how it was processed and make sure there is no hygenic concerns. Wild hogs carry diseases and an unregulated distribution of them would not fly. The last thing people need is to be given spoiled meat. There are no natural predators and they can survive almost anywhere, so there is no natural limiting factor that you can manage to lower their numbers. Constantly repairing your fences to keep them out is a chore and costly but might be the best solution…

    1. Why not just add the trace warfarin to the millions of pounds of ‘deer’ corn blanketing the countryside? Ought to help thin out the hogs since they’re eating most of it, and wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a dime!

  2. Poisons and pesticides only harm our environment further. Maybe a bounty would encourage more hunters or organized hunting parties to go after them. Where’s that reality show family who make their living hunting and trapping feral hogs? There are people who are going hungry and undernourished in our country so the meat would help those in need.

  3. Feral hogs are a really big problem. You are not going to be able to control them by hunting and trapping alone. In 2015 we killed over 200 hogs, and we didn’t make a dent in them. We have lost two cows while calving in the last few years to wild hogs.

    Please don’t say that the product will kill any animal that eats a poisoned hog unless you can find a study or some sort of documentation that states this. I was able to find the following information, keep in mind it comes from the maker of the bait.

    “Secondary toxicity is very minimal due to the high tolerance of other wildlife to warfarin, and very low warfarin residue levels in the deceased hog. With birds, EPA reports that warfarin is virtually non-toxic. Numerous studies have been conducted with other animals at 10x the Kaput Feral Hog Bait dosage with no negative effects”

    1. I agree with you 100%. People are just ignorant and do not understand the seriousness of this problem. Hunting is not a realistic solution but this warfarin is.

  4. The meat is good and why waste food. No shortage of hunters around this area. So sponsor hunts process the kill donate the meat. Win win instead of whine whine right?

  5. Working and living on over 100 acres that hogs are often destroying is a problem that plagues me and my family that the environmentalists and lawyers can’t see from their high-rise condos and townhouses in the city.

  6. The warfarin in the poison would kill every Hawk, buzzard, fox, coyote and you name it that eats the dead pig that died from the poison.
    Go hunting at night and shoot the feral hogs I know it’s hard to get off that couch but it’s actually fun to shoot them, find out before hand where to donate the meat if you want to go that route.

  7. Typical. The animal rights activists and private interests have their way while the landowners are left holding the bag. As a landowner, there are plenty of productive things to do instead of attempting in vain to try and close up the craters that these overpopulated beasts create. Maybe this product would have worked maybe not but there HAS to be a viable solution instead of running with dogs or trapping both of which don’t come close to eliminating them.

    1. I agree with sleepy. While hunting them may be a sport for some, the results are minimal. You see 40 or more in a group and maybe shoot 4 or 5 with an automatic rifle. Wow! Glad u had fun now let the landowners get to bouncing across the damage while we tear up our equipment.

  8. I don’t understand why they would use poison to thin the population. Poison kills hogs, pets eat carcass coyotes wolfs carcass they all die. A little management would go a long way. Reputable butchers process hogs for 1/2 the meat hunter gets 1/2, other half is donated to food bank. When processed right meat is delicious. Money that is now paid to hunter would go to defray cost of butcher

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