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Comment by r3trohack3r | Hacker News Reader

> [The] reality is still that outside of the Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, there are no meaningful opportunities to hunt wild pigs, which is not allowed in Ontario and Quebec

In the southern United States it’s open season on wild pigs to keep the population under control.

In at least Texas, you can take a machine gun mounted to a helicopter to go hog hunting: https://www.helibacon.com/texas-helicopter-hog-hunting/

This article is light on the risks of an unchecked feral pig population. Pigs are dangerous. They’re mean, dirty, and can wreak havoc in ecosystems. Coming across a feral pig is dangerous, and they travel in squadrons so it’s likely you’ll cross a handful at a time. Unlike most animals that will leave humans alone unless they have reason, feral pigs will pick a fight.

That these researchers are saying the pigs are pushing into human settlements is cause for concern.

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I'm a gun owner and support controlled hunting both for needed food for some people and population control when done properly. But beware perverse incentives and proper management. There have been plenty of articles and research about use of incentives and industry for dealing with invasive species, not just the feral pig problem but many others (nutria and lionfish for example [0]). And states that have made hunting easier do not seem to have necessarily benefited perhaps in part due to also creating an industry and economic incentives around feral pig hunting that actively encourages people to want more feral pigs to hunt. This has echoes to efforts going way back, a well meaning simple program might offer payment for some proof of killing a pest animal. This seems like a way to get people to go out and get them. But will they do that, or will some end up actively breeding said pest animals, harvesting them for the reward, and having plenty escape or eventually cause other issues? There definitely has to be some holistic thinking before just letting systems develop, particularly since it can be hard/impossible to unwind even if it was a mistake. Like all kinds of economic activities once people get into them lobbying and economic arguments can in turn shift the politics.

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0: "Review of harvest incentives to control invasive species" https://www.reabic.net/journals/mbi/2014/3/MBI_2014_Pasko_Go...

This is nonsense. No farmer or rancher in Texas wants feral hogs, and no one in Texas tries to promote feral hog populations. We have something like 4 million feral hogs. The problem is that avid 1 hunter can take out 20-30 in one night, but they don't go out to do it every night, and there's not enough feral hog hunters to make a dent.

Feral hogs cause enormous amounts of damage, and there's no hope of hunting or trapping them down to manageable numbers much less zero.

If I’m a hog farmer and I can make 200 smeckles for a standard hog or get paid 400 smeckles for each “feral hog” I hand over then logically I’ll just start breeding the feral ones instead.

The market finds the most profitable solution, not necessarily the best solution.

You foolishly extrapolate to a market that has never existed (in Texas at least).

There is no market for feral hogs. Sure, casual hunters may pay to get to hunt a bunch of feral hogs, but professional hog hunters get paid a lot for it (they use helicopters, to give you an idea of how much farmers and ranchers will pay for that service). The value of a feral hog's meat on the market is zero.

Sport hunting doesn't help keep the population down though:

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-has-a-feral-hog-...

When I was younger my friends and I used to trap and kill dozens of them at a time. The sheer number of hogs and the rate at which they breed down in the river bottoms is insane.

Not sure how you'd ever get rid of them, they are pretty clever and once you use a trick unsuccessfully on them they tend to avoid it.

Biological warfare, in one form or another, might be the only way, but that comes with risks that are probably unacceptable, even in light of the amount of damage they cause.

Put lions in - wolves are too small, and jaguar won't touch them, jaguar is solitary but pigs come in packs.

Lions can't handle the Canadian climate, Siberian tigers can, and they are proficient boar hunters.

>Not sure how you'd ever get rid of them

Same how Australia fought the Emus in The Great Emu war

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wms8ZEtVQhg

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

It's nothing that increased farming won't solve. Farmers will efficiently eradicate any pest in their designated areas.

| But if you just shoot one, the rest scatter.

But you don't shoot one. You shoot most of them. That requires thermal optics, semi-automatic rifles, high capacity magazines (and lots of them), ATVs or helicopters or well-planned stands with a good view of a clearing that hogs might hang out in at night.

Wow, this is next level of killing living beings for pleasure.

> Pigs are dangerous. They’re mean, dirty, and can wreak havoc in ecosystems. Coming across a feral pig is dangerous, and they travel in squadrons so it’s likely you’ll cross a handful at a time.

Sounds a lot like humans.

What are you trying to say here?

It does!

The great ~~emu~~ feral pig war

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