feral hog eratication in Texas outa of helicopters want your thoughts!

[BiggA]

I have never eaten a wild hog but I know guys that wont eat buck deer cuz it dont taste good. As for me I dont think there is much difference in taste based on sex maybe age but not sex.

[FireRanger]

They are great to eat!! I have eaten both and in my opinion they are both just fine.

[beeker]

don't the males get themselves are stanked up for the ladies? maybe that's what they're refering too..

[kenhuntin]

There is a taste difference and so the reason for domestic hogs being denutted. Some worse than others. To say it is unpalatable is up to the consumer. The thought of big bucks tasting bad stems mostly from from the fact that they get paraded around alot longer and the meat taints from lack of fast cooling.

[huntingfreak_09]

my dads side is that he thinks it unethicle/not fair chase hunting them out of helicopters due to they have no chance when you are above them chaseing em. but i told him about the problem their is with them in the south and he wasnt aware of how bad it was but he is sticking to the use of helicopters is unethincle/not fair chase so he would rather do it by foot to give the pig or what have you a better chance ya know. so he said i bet majority of ppl would agree with me that its unethicle and all that so i came on here to see what it boiled down to.

[Go Big Red!]

don't the males get themselves are stanked up for the ladies? maybe that's what they're refering too..

Isn't that what most of us do anyways......

[Buckslayer Bob]

I know some people down there and have seen what these beasts do! We think coyotes are bad?? I don't think there is a such thing as "ethical" when trying to eradicate a pest.

Are sticky mouse traps ethical??

Great post. Exactly what I was thinking reading through the thread.

[22lex]

The thought of big bucks tasting bad stems mostly from from the fact that they get paraded around alot longer and the meat taints from lack of fast cooling.

I will attest to this. My friend is a part-time butcher, and his second question after the first question (sex of deer) is "did you drive it around for three days to show it off?" He sees more wasted deer a year then anyone of us can think of. He has had guys bring in deer that have sat in the back of a persons truck for two days with it's legs firmly closed, and in the middle of October with 60 degree weather.

As for the taste of the pigs, well I used to help a farmer casterate them. He told me that there is a chance for the boars over time to "taint" the meat with their testosterone if they grew to a certain size. He also said that after 1000's of generations of domesticated pig breeding, there probably isn't any "taint" left in them to pass on anyways because they are slaughtered so young, but you still take the nuts to settle them for a while before market. For domesticated wild pigs, there probably can be a taint problem, but truthfully I don't eat enough pork myself to say I would know the difference.

[slystuff]

  it's a mystery to me; no seriously it is not ethical to hunt them in chopters; but friends and fellow sportsman they are eraticating  a speices this type of activity is not hunting; at least not minnesota hunting. it is what it is gettin rid of a nuisance they used hellicopters and sharp shooters up in deer zone 1-101 a couple of years ago us residents were mixed views most of us were against it how ever it was not up to us in any way the DNR actually knows what they are doing and 80 % of the time do it correctly.by the way cwd is down up there and the herd is coming back with fresh bloodlines.

[stevejedlenski]

i think most people are arguing the same point. using a copter is not "hunting" but shooting. therefore in a hunting perspective it would be unethical/not fair chase. however this is not a hunting situation but a culling of the species. so yes if they need to stop the population using copters then its not unethical. but if they are wanting to "hunt" the animal then you need to use fair chase which would be man vs. hog no machines involved.

bottom line
if hunting its unethical
if shooting its ethical

[kenhuntin]

I bet it aint no easy task shooting a running hog from a moving aircraft. It is pretty hard even getting close to them buggers from stalk.

[Go Big Red!]

I bet it aint no easy task shooting a running hog from a moving aircraft. It is pretty hard even getting close to them buggers from stalk.

I can tell you they are hard to stalk close to.

[jkcmj]

My brother used to live in San Antonio Texas and knew some old mexicans that trapped hogs to sell to the feed mills.  Many of the feed mills buy them for resale to Asian markets oversees. They were paying .30 a pound.  The average yearling was right around 100 lbs so $30 per hog. If they caught little ones they let them go till they got bigger.  I went down and bought 3 live hogs for $90 from him(two were small, but the price is the same as they just catch them bigger and get the same money without having to feed them). We butchered the biggest one(125 lbs boar) and tried making pets out of the other 2.  That turned out bad, very mean little buggers even though they were only 15-20 lbs. I went into the stock trailer and caught one only to have the other one attack me.  Escaped with a few scrapes.  The one we butchered was very tough, but tasted fine. We ended up grinding him for sausage after the chops turned out so tough.  The old guy that trapped them said they often times got a mother and many babies, or 2 to 3 yearlings in one trap all at once, very easy to lure into live traps.  Big boars would usually damage the traps and escape since they are only made of welded cattle panels.  They design them so that really big pigs don't fit all the way in easily, so the door drops on their backs and they can back out.

I would think shooting on the run out of a chopper would ruin a lot of meat.