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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I sometimes wonder how since we've managed to hunt some things to extinction, couldn't we give folks some incentive to do the same to some of these invasive species?

Granted, the commercial value / usage of some of these invasive species is probably low to 0. And even commercial ventures probably would care to keep the business going ...

And even places that have had open hunting for feral pigs still have problems with them.

I just wonder sometimes... we're good at wiping stuff out sometimes, wish we could harness it for good.

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Some parts of the southern US have a bounty on nutria tails. On top of the bounty I think there's some nice incentives because IMO invasive species are a relatively ethical source of fur (if you're killing them anyways, might as well use the fur).

However I think these sorts of programs are tricky because if you make the incentives TOO good you can end up with really bad side effects. For example the (apocryphal?) story about how India created a cobra bounty to reduce the wild population, and people eventually realized it was easier and still profitable to just breed cobras at home. When the government realized this, they stopped the program. With no more incentive to raise the cobras, the breeders let them go, increasing the overall population.

If they'd announced this an appropriate period ahead (5 days maybe) then people running home farms would have cashed them in and hunters would have gone out for one last catch.

Though the hard details of this story are hard to find.

I've heard that story before! I looked it up and turns out there is a whole effect named after it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

I think the more effective programs for population control involve allowing hunters to tag more of a particular animal along side lengthening the hunting season for them.

People largely enjoy hunting enough that they don't need an economic incentive to do so. Pigs are pretty tasty too.

Wisconsin has open season year round on feral pigs with a small game license.

Land owners don't even need a license to shoot them.

However, that hasn't wiped them out.

Are they good to eat? If they aren't good as food, or for fur/skin, what's the motiviation to hunt them? Pure sport maybe, but many hunters will elect to spend their time and ammunition on something more desireable.

Feral pigs are just big pigs with overgrown teeth and more hair, something about freedom makes them even more aggressive than they normally are so never get near a wild souder (group). Yes, they are good to eat if in good areas but they usually have worms so cook well. Many ranches have cage traps set for this very reason. TX declared open season on feral hogs and offers a bounty per tail as funds permit, there is no reason to "cobra farm" them as prolific as they are. Enterprising souls have even offered "chopper rides" for the shared cost of ammo & fuel so you could hunt down a sounder and kill them with a variety of full-auto fire weapons (M60, M240, Mini-gun, etc) from the safety of the air. Yes, it sounds horrible till you consider the amount of damage they do to everything in their path and with a population of 10mil+ you aren't really making a dent.

IIRC the real issue is that if you pay someone to process the hog for you, for both the cost and quality, you're better off going to the store.

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