Why Is It So Difficult To Control Wild Pig Populations? Can hunters rid us of a “real pest”?

Part II

Landowners have a strong economic motivation to control tightly access to their properties. It is called access fee, trespass fee, trophy fee, guide fee or whatever else suits you. Here in California, there are ranches that derive ten or more percent of their annual income from such fees.

Let's see, in California it will cost a hunter at least around 500 dollars in the form of a guide fee or access fees to hunt wild pigs on private land. On the other hand, Texas with its plague of wild pigs surely has much lower fees. Wild pigs are pests there and they have too many of them. Therefore, hunters should be welcome to hunt the nuisance boar on private land for a very, very small access fees. Right?

Wrong of course. Abundance of wild pigs and exorbitant damage done by them to agricultural crops or not, guide and access fees for wild pig hunts are not much lower in Texas. A boar hunter will still have to cough up at least 350 to 500 dollars for a hunt on private land.

Would you as a landowner really trade this income for some 'free' damage to your land and to the environment done by offroaders and hunters? I would not.

With that we have come once again full circle. If wild pigs learn to avoid traps, if they move around a lot when their placid lives are disturbed and if hunter access to private land is very restricted and costly, then it is inevitable that someone calls again for the US Cavalry to ride to the rescue!

Fly to the rescue would be the better formulation because helicopter based 'shooters' are getting ever more popular with the authorities as the favorite solution to the conundrum of how to shoot as many wild pigs in the shortest time possible without setting foot an another man's property.

Better yet, it also pleases the ego and the machismo of the shooters with the big guns, just as federal shooters with machine guns give the operator that Rambo or John Wayne feeling of instilling fear, domination and the power of merciless eradication of villains at any cost.

But heck, it is 'fair chase' and therefore must be good. After all, the shooter first uses his platform to scare the quarry out of hiding and then pursues it in a fair chase from above, giving them a fair chance to escape before inevitably being shot anyway. Isn't that much like dropping bombs on the heads of civilians from 30,000 feet?

Yet, much like civilians the smart wild pigs are beginning to learn to play dead when hunted by brave macho men in their flying machines. Once the danger has passed, they rise again to make more wild pigs - as relevant experiences in the Australian outback demonstrate.

Is there a better way of controlling wild pig populations? Yes, there are indeed several that best the flying killers. Birth control is one of them. Possibly the most promising and most humane – for humans and wild pigs alike. Finally sows could enjoy life in the sun free from ever lasting pregnancies. Is it going to happen? Well, there are experiments!

However, at this time establishment and vested interests are bringing up many arguments against birth control for wild pigs hoping that one or two might stick and protect their sine cure. Birth control for pigeons works, why not for pigs?

And then there is of course hunting. Hunting? Has hunting ever solved the problem of overpopulation and crop damage? Oh yes, it has. I will spare you the list of species hunted by man to extinction. Just go look for buffalo. When did you last see a herd of thousands of them roaming free in the West? Or a Dodo bird strutting its stuff?

Granted, hunting the way we practice wild pig hunts in this country today will not make a significant difference. Though there are plenty of boar hunters and hundreds of thousands of wild pigs scurrying around the wilderness and front yards, lethal encounters between the two are relatively rare. Why?

Because hunters usually cannot access land with substantial wild pig populations. And because guides are taking out one or a few hunters at a time on a one day hunt which yields maybe a dead boar or two. That will not make a significant difference. Even if 100 guides took out one hunter each on a given weekend, the long term impact on a boar population would be almost negligible because the culling is confined to small areas and affects only a minor segment of the total population. An active guide may organize boar hunts several times a week. That will also not change the picture much because the wild pigs just move to an adjacent more peaceful area. And with an average home range of 10 to 50 square miles, a sounder has plenty of real estate to evade increased hunting pressure. Thus your nuisance pigs become my tilling crew!

Furthermore, hunters have a tendency to go for large boar. Frequently the largest boar in a sounder is the pregnant lead sow. Harvest it (and her unborn piglets) and all females in the sounder will very quickly go into estrus – and produce plenty of new pigs to replace the fallen matron. If you are attempting to control wild pigs or to eradicate them on your property, you have just handed yourself a major defeat. One sow lost, up to 40 piglets gained. A sounder usually has about 3 to five or more females of breeding age. Each one of them will produce around 6 to 8 piglets. Boar can breed any time of the year, though there are two peak breeding seasons, one in winter and the other one in early summer. The wild pigs are out breeding individual hunters.

Central Europe has a different approach to population control, be it deer or boar. The Department of Forestry, essentially the equivalent of our Forest Service and the Department of Fish and Game rolled into one, sets maximum game densities for each species and each hunting lease. The owner of the lease is responsible for capping game at the predetermined numbers. If he fails to do so, the Forestry Department will either send their hunters in to cull the herd or force special hunts until the number of the game population is within the set limits.

Boar and deer drive are the most common means of population control. A drive is a special hunt that brings together a large number of invited hunters (on foot, mind you, and not in 4x4 vehicles), a multitude of drivers and dogs on a predetermined course designed to chase the game into a tightly controlled course. Along the course hunters are stationed in a way that allows each of them a clear and safe field of fire. It's almost like a military exercise in setting an ambush. The lease holder (or owner ) of the shoot acts as a quasi 'general'. He stakes out and prepares the the course, directs drivers and dogs and establishes the shooting positions. . Even a smaller shoot will bring together 40 to 60 hunters for such an event and an even greater number of drivers. A battue is not only a hunt but also a social event. It is also an rather effective way of reducing game numbers considerably in one well planned event.

It is not unusual to harvest sixty, eighty or more boar during one single drive. But that is not all,, deer, rabbits, foxes, badgers, birds and whatever else has an open season at the time of the drive will be taken or culled as well.

Battues are usually not only held on one hunting lease but move from one shoot to another over a number of weekends during the main hunting season. This results in an overall better harvest of boar because the ability of the quarry to move from one shoot to another in order to avoid hunting pressure is greatly reduced. After all, the boar may run away from a drive on one lease only to find themselves exposed to yet another drive on the hunting lease they chose as safe haven. Just like the boar below.

Compare this to our most common hunting method: One ranch, one guide, one to four hunters, one weekend at a time. One single sow can easily out breed losses from this type of boar hunting. Here we can see at least five get away!

I have never heard of organized drives for wild pigs in California. Maybe they are held somewhere on the east coast of the country or in Texas. But here? And if there are any, then they certainly would only be held for the friends of a rancher but exclude other hunters from participating. Thus, harvests of 60 or more wild pigs in one morning remain a dream for California wild pig hunters.

Yes, I hear you asking: Why then do so many European countries have ever expanding, out of control boar populations?

Simple answer. Just as in California, boar congregate where the feeding is easy and hunting pressure is low or non-existent. That means suburban areas of cities large and small, parks and areas used by people for recreation. No hunting is allowed in those areas. Not even our brave fly-boys are welcome.

As long as boar and wild pig can retreat to sanctuaries in close proximity to human population centers and find food, shelter and awed admirers in our parks, the wild boar will prosper and multiply. In Europe and even more so here in the United States.

Would it not be a worthwhile experiment to get the landowners in an area with high wild pig density to organize and cooperate in a series of wild pig drives over the course of a few weeks? Develop strategies, find drivers and their dogs, organize hunters and then systematically move the drives through a well defined group of ranches and farms in an area? No doubt, wild pigs, lots of wild pigs would be taken.

Look at these boar. They were harvested in 2005 during one single battue.

(http://saxtech.eu/Jagd/Drueckjagd-bei-Altenburg-2005.htm)

Agreed, it would not be easy because of the size of ranches in California and Texas and of the challenging territory . But has anyone ever tried?

PJJ