Hogs are big business here in Texas, where you can pay a couple thousand bucks to shoot them with a machine gun from a helicopter all day, so… what’s the problem? :P
The problem is that there are not nearly enough people that hunt to even keep the population stable through hunting. The fact that hog hunting has become a business is the reason that real solutions to wiping out feral populations aren’t making headway.
This right here. I fell down the “wild boar problem” rabbit hole a couple years ago. I was curious about what controls have been tried and what could be done to bring things back into balance. The statistic I read said that 75000 boars must be killed per year inTexas just to keep their numbers stable there. Holy hell. That’s a lot of dangerous game hunting.
If I was going to guess, the actual numbers killed are far, far lower than that. Especially since there are a lot of very large private hunting preserves that intentionally try to keep their feral pig population high so that they can attract paying hunters.
When I moved out of Texas in 2016, some friends told me there was a $5 bounty for hog tails from the state. So, you could do it for more than fun; less than a dollar a round for .308, then 5 dollars per tail… that’s a decent profit.
Man, I wish good .308 ammo was only $1/round… Even if I’m loading it myself, good 6.5CM ammo (defined as sub-MOA performance) costs about $1/ea. with Hornady 147gr ELD-M bullets, and that’s only if I ignore how much I’ve sunk into a press and case prep.
Hogs are big business here in Texas, where you can pay a couple thousand bucks to shoot them with a machine gun from a helicopter all day, so… what’s the problem? :P
The problem is that there are not nearly enough people that hunt to even keep the population stable through hunting. The fact that hog hunting has become a business is the reason that real solutions to wiping out feral populations aren’t making headway.
This right here. I fell down the “wild boar problem” rabbit hole a couple years ago. I was curious about what controls have been tried and what could be done to bring things back into balance. The statistic I read said that 75000 boars must be killed per year in Texas just to keep their numbers stable there. Holy hell. That’s a lot of dangerous game hunting.
If I was going to guess, the actual numbers killed are far, far lower than that. Especially since there are a lot of very large private hunting preserves that intentionally try to keep their feral pig population high so that they can attract paying hunters.
Oh I know, I was being sarcastic, doing the typical redneck ‘lol we shootin’ ‘em fer fun, what’s the problem?!’ type thing.
When I moved out of Texas in 2016, some friends told me there was a $5 bounty for hog tails from the state. So, you could do it for more than fun; less than a dollar a round for .308, then 5 dollars per tail… that’s a decent profit.
Man, I wish good .308 ammo was only $1/round… Even if I’m loading it myself, good 6.5CM ammo (defined as sub-MOA performance) costs about $1/ea. with Hornady 147gr ELD-M bullets, and that’s only if I ignore how much I’ve sunk into a press and case prep.
Assuming you’re a good shot and can hit a moving target. More than a couple-three rounds per hog and you start getting into marginal territory.
That’s my favorite kind of conservation.