Author Topic: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County  (Read 1543 times)

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Offline OldSchoolRanger

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Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« on: October 03, 2011, 07:19:43 AM »
They're also a problem in Delaware county.  For those of you interested in hunting hogs, I found this article:

Sullivan on alert for wild pigs Vicious hogs escaped from hunting camps   Text Size:  |  |   Print this ArticlePrint this Article Email this ArticleEmail this Article

ShareThis      Photo 1 of 2  |  Zoom Photo +     Hancock farmer Peter Andersen says wild pigs ate 11 acres of his corn crop this year – a loss of $10,000. And the feral pigs could transmit disease to domesticated ones. A pig killed along the Sullivan border recently tested positive for a disease called pseudorabies.DAVID DOONAN/For the Times Herald-Record   By  Times Herald-Record  Published: 2:00 AM - 10/01/11  HANCOCK — Peter Andersen's latest encounter with vicious pigs came early one September night when he pulled his truck into the driveway.
In the woods across from his farmhouse, Andersen could see a 300-pound hog rooting for food. The third-generation farmer ran into his house, grabbed his German sniper rifle and fired one 8 mm round into the pig's side.
The pig ran a short distance and dropped dead. Loud squeals echoed across the hills as roughly 30 other pigs sprinted away. Andersen shot again and again.
  Hog encounters Hunters with small-game licenses are encouraged to kill hogs. There is no season on hogs, which means they can be shot anytime. Basic hunting rules still apply, so do not shoot them within 500 feet of a home, business, school, etc.
Wildlife experts also want to hear about your hog sightings. Call the DEC Bureau of Wildlife at 518-402-8862.
  In two minutes, he fired nine shots and killed eight pigs. He also proved two points:
"I'm a very good shot," Andersen said with a serious chuckle, "and these animals need to be destroyed."
Feral hogs are an emerging problem here on the western rim of Sullivan County, where experts say they pose a threat to crops, livestock and human safety. A 2010 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed wild boar sightings at eight locations in Sullivan County, including Bethel, Callicoon and Fremont.
Andersen alone has killed upward of 30 feral hogs over the past five years.
Most of the wild hogs are Russian boars. The largest of them grow to be 400 pounds, with razor-sharp tusks that can measure 3 inches or longer. Such hogs are so numerous and destructive in places like Florida and Texas that people who chase and hunt them have their own reality TV show called "American Hoggers."
The fearless hogs have already killed one dog in New York and chased several hunters through the woods.
"It's a safety concern," said Trish Westenbroek, livestock educator for Sullivan's Cornell Cooperative Extension. "Most people don't realize just how vicious these hogs really are."
Escapes from hunting campsFeral hogs are not native to New York. Wildlife experts said the pigs have escaped over the years from hunting camps that import and breed exotic animals for visitors to hunt on large, fenced-off preserves.
That includes a camp called Pond Ridge Hunts, which breeds the boars in Bethel and Hancock. Preserve owner Zbyszek Trunirz acknowledged that the pestilent hogs on Andersen's farm belonged to his company. He said fallen trees broke the fences on his property, allowing the pigs to get loose.
New York does not regulate feral hogs. It also stopped trapping and killing the pigs in 2009 because the effort was too costly. Current control efforts are limited to the USDA and local hunters and farmers, but experts believe state authorities must plug the regulatory gap before more swine escape and begin breeding in the wild.
"It's a growing problem, and we would like to eradicate them from New York," said Kelly Stang, a state Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife biologist.
"But until the source of them is plugged up, it's silly to be spending millions of dollars on a trapping program."
Feral hogs are already breeding in the wild in central New York.
Despite reports of sows and piglets in Sullivan County, it's still unclear whether they're reproducing here.
Path of destructionIt is clear that they're causing trouble. The voracious boars are known for tearing apart lawns and devouring crops. One herd ate 11 acres of Andersen's corn this year — a loss of $10,000. Westenbroek said one also entered a commercial pig farm near Jeffersonville in 2008 and cut a sow with its tusks.
Disease is a concern. A pig killed along the Sullivan County border recently tested positive for a disease called pseudorabies, which can spread among pigs and kill entire herds by preventing reproduction.
"If that disease gets into commercial pork farms, it would essentially shut them all down," Stang said. Pseudorabies does not affect humans.
The USDA has set up cameras on land along the New York-Pennsylvania border to track and trap the pigs. Landowners like Andersen, meanwhile, are holding onto their guns with fingers crossed.
"If they find out these hogs are actually breeding out there, then we're in trouble," he said. "But for right now we've got hope."
abosch@th-record.com
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Offline Mikey

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Re: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2011, 03:16:48 AM »
Never known pigs in the wild not to breed, but the little ones are right tasty and don't take too long to cook up.  And, since they have finally managed to escape their confines and run amok in the wilds of nys, looks like we just have to kill'm.  Period.  Sullivan County isn't far away and if we could locate Farmer Andersen in Hancock, I'd bet he could show us where to find them.  I like the fact that he used a 8mm for hogs. 
 
I say we head on out there and give this man a hand.  When we are finished there, let's head to Texas and help out the Land_Owner, and then hit Florida and help out the orchard growers.  I sure hope you guys like ribs.........

Offline DANNY-L

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Re: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2011, 10:58:31 AM »
The way I understand it according to ny outdoor news most of the hogs escaped from game ranches,so if ny don't want the pigs in the wild why do they still allow ranches to have pigs which in the long run will probably cost the state (us tax payers)money. Myself I am kinda looking forward to free pork and fun getting it.

Offline OldSchoolRanger

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Re: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2011, 05:53:54 PM »
Never known pigs in the wild not to breed, but the little ones are right tasty and don't take too long to cook up.  And, since they have finally managed to escape their confines and run amok in the wilds of nys, looks like we just have to kill'm.  Period.  Sullivan County isn't far away and if we could locate Farmer Andersen in Hancock, I'd bet he could show us where to find them.  I like the fact that he used a 8mm for hogs. 
 
I say we head on out there and give this man a hand.  When we are finished there, let's head to Texas and help out the Land_Owner, and then hit Florida and help out the orchard growers.  I sure hope you guys like ribs.........
I'm sure plenty of guys have already tried to locate him. ;D
So do I, mmmm, mmmm, good!

The way I understand it according to ny outdoor news most of the hogs escaped from game ranches,so if ny don't want the pigs in the wild why do they still allow ranches to have pigs which in the long run will probably cost the state (us tax payers)money. Myself I am kinda looking forward to free pork and fun getting it.

Agreed, but you gotta feel for Farmer Anderson.
"You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts." - Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan

When you allow a lie to go unchallenged, it becomes the truth.

My quandary, I personally, don't think I have enough Handi's but, I know I have more Handi's than I really need or should have.

Offline GeneRector

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Re: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2011, 06:21:28 PM »
 :)  Howdy! It would not be a surprise if the hog population increased substantially in New York state. Wherever there is a water and food source, hogs will eventually find it in spite of hunting pressure. Hog hunting is a lot of fun and they are good eating. In Texas people have hunted hogs for so long and so often that it is not fun anymore for some hunters. And the hog population just seems to keep increasing even with lots of hunting pressure. You can hunt hogs from helicopters now in Texas. Expensive, but I sure would like to try it maybe once. Good Hunting! Always, Gene
 
 
Happy Trails!
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Gene Rector
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Offline LanceR

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Re: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2011, 07:40:50 PM »
The way I understand it according to ny outdoor news most of the hogs escaped from game ranches,so if ny don't want the pigs in the wild why do they still allow ranches to have pigs which in the long run will probably cost the state (us tax payers)money. Myself I am kinda looking forward to free pork and fun getting it.

It is simple, really.  In the convoluted world created by our Legislature game farms are not answerable to the DEC even though they have game on them and they have brought us such joys as chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer. 

Because the game is captive game farms are considered to be the the same as a beef cattle or poultry operations and so game farms, private wildlife refuges and hunting preserves are under the jurisdiction of the Department of  Agriculture and Markets.  Consequently the DEC can't regulate fence construction standards, , compound sizes in relation to herd sizes, overall herd sizes, positive identification requirements (like tattoos) to show where escaped animals came from, bonding to pay for damages etc.

The DEC is currently communicating with Ag and Markets to come to some sort of mutually acceptable way to deal with this issue but it is an uphill struggle. 

Fixing the issue may take a concerted push to get the Legislature to declare Russian Boar strain swine an invasive species and prohibit the possession, transportation or release of them along with a stiff enough regime of penalties to back that declaration up.  If that happened we would still need to deal with the natural territorial expansion of swine coming north from Pennsylvania.

Lance

Offline DANNY-L

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Re: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2011, 04:43:40 AM »
Hopefully the farmers around here will let hunters in to help them,but most farmers here complain about the damage deer and bear do but still won't let hunters help them, instead they like to get nuisence permits and just shoot them and walk away. Usually gut shoot them so they don't die in the meadows. One big farm who is owned by one of our legislaters has been known for this and one day while talking to a warden he said they are aware of it but no nuisence permit has ever been issued to the farmer/legislater, but yet nothing has been done and he sends his workers out day or night to shoot what they can. There are plenty of responsible hunters around that would be more than willing to help the farmers if given the chance.

Offline Mikey

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Re: Wild Pigs emerging problem in Sullivan County
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2011, 04:07:48 PM »
Actually it is not the few escaped Russian Boar that are the problem, it is the overbreeding hog farms that can't, won't or don't control their livestock that are the problem.  When you think about the sheer numbers of pen/farm raised hogs sent to market every day, you must consider massive numbers of penned/farmed animals that can easily escape.
 
On the other hand imports are handled differently.  Figure this - it cost serious $ to get a Russian Boar here, whether farm raised or trapped from the wild, then certified as disease free, and innoculated against almost everything for importation, and transported yet some seem to think the preserve owners are so careless as to let that type of a investment crawl under a fence, or that they carry some rare foreign disease, yet don't seem to understand that these animals are not imported in mass but a few at a time and are hunted almost immediately.  The Russian Boar is now made 'evil' by the same fearless media that tried to end hunting in nys with Rabies scares and chronic wasting disease fears, although we haven't heard squat about that in a couple of years and I cannot recall reading about any hunters who went rabid from dealing with Whitetail. 
 
You know, this place is such a dang nanny state you ought to be glad you were born with your own testicles because if was up to this state it would be optional and probably dealt with at the same time a circumcision is performed so you wouldn't ever know what you were supposed to believe and you would read a lot of newspaper articles.