Topic: US military declares war

[upperlake04]

  ..on feral pigs at Georgia's Fort Benning

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FORT BENNING, Ga. - Major Bobby Toon is known as the Pig Czar at Fort Benning, Georgia.

He's in charge of ridding the 75,000-hectare base of its unwanted guests: an estimated 6,000 feral pigs that roam freely.

The animals, common throughout Georgia, are known for tearing up woodlands and farms. They are aggressive foragers, gobbling up native vegetation and endangered species.

Toon says "These pigs feed and breed. That's all they care about."

Since July, more than 900 pigs have been killed and Toon says he has personally "brought down" 68 of the animals. He says they "can smell a turkey egg three miles away" and are also a danger to tortoises and woodpeckers."

He's not the only pig hunter at work. About 2,000 people have been authorized to hunt the animals and the base is offering a $40 bounty for every pig tail that's brought in. Hunters must be active-duty, retired military or civilian workers at Benning and must have a licence from the base.
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  Well, thats interesting and not having any critters like that here I googled feral pig.       Apparently around Pilbara, Western Australia they get very large.  yikes

[eldar]

Them things do get big from what I hear. And have a nasty temper.Like a badgers big brother.

[CrisPDuk]

Some friends of MrsD's sister over in Melbourne go on hunting expeditions for the Aussie variety, never seen a live one personally, but I did see a couple of dead one's they'd brought back when I was over there last, and they were absolutely huge

[mark]

I'll bet they taste a heckuva lot better than badgers, though. mmmmmmmmmmm tasty pork products.

They aren't a problem right around here. I heard about an area about 100 mi. away that had an 'infestation' but never got up there to help out. Open BLM land too.

A .30-'06 will cure a nasty temper any day.

[dusterdude]

haha,i`d like to see terry try to bang one of them.

[eldar]

Oh NOT a picture I needed to get in my head!

[BobbyR]

I'll bet they taste a heckuva lot better than badgers, though. mmmmmmmmmmm tasty pork products.

They aren't a problem right around here. I heard about an area about 100 mi. away that had an 'infestation' but never got up there to help out. Open BLM land too.

A .30-'06 will cure a nasty temper any day.

On those I would suggest a 12 ga sloid slug.

[Rocking-M]

I prefer the old 44 mag handgun approach.

They can get pretty nasty for sure and since they roam in numbers they can be deadly
if they get you on the ground. Duster, you have them over in your neck of the woods.
The landowner I'm cutting now had a couple he was raising, they caught them in eastern
Virginia. Their porkchops now.

[sandcastcb750]

Sure, those pigs are a problem in Georgia, but we got our own.

Canadian Geese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They won't let you play golf. They crap green stuff everywhere. Try to let your kids play sports and fall in that crap. They are mean and ugly.

They use to migrate from the Hudson Bay to the Yucatan Pennisula. no more. We now call them "Welfare Geese".

They serve no purpose but......

Eat, crap and multiply endlessly.

[eldar]

They make good shooting and eating though.I guess I never had run ins like that with geese.

[sandcastcb750]

If I had a gun, if they let me shoot them, I could get a minimum of 10 Canadian Geese in less than a mile away in any direction. Maybe more. In some grassy places there a hundreds of them.......

.........eating, crapping and making goose love.

Seeing as they are just plain ornery awful creatures, they probably taste bad too.

[fuzzybutt]

my weapon of choice for hog hunting is my smith+wesson .500mag. years ago in florida i shot a wild hog in the forhead with a .44 and it bounced off the nasty buggers skull and pissed him off. i take no more chances when hog hunting

[troppo]

back home a lot of folks used to go pig hunting,seen some big mothers in the back of a ute..
the usual weapons were dogs and rifles, saw more than a couple of dogs torn apart by a big boar

[Terry in Australia]

I shot some years ago up in Central Queensland, I had an M1 carbine then, and it was great for the smaller ones, but my Marlin 30/30 was better for the real big buggers. They were eating all the cotton crops in the area, so were pretty much "Grain Fed" and worm free and pisssed the farmers off, no end.

We sold the pigs to a local butcher who was sending them all to Germany, and the weekends' shooting paid for a motel room each, all the booze we could drink, and our food and fuel, and I had enough left over to buy a nice Mossberg pump action shotgun back in Brisbane. Good stuff!

I'm a serving Defense member, (albeit Australian Army) I wonder how I can wangle a paid hunting trip to Fort Benning? Cool! 

 

[troppo]

how about a "cultural exchange" program, god knows our cultures are different enough

[Rocking-M]

Hey Fuzz, we kill hogs all the time with a 22, you just got to hit them right.
Beavers are the same way eh Upperlakes?

[upperlake04]

 I wouldn't know RM  but for sure, beavers are about .22 sized- your wild pigs must be pretty small   The beaver is a national symbol that goes back to the founding of this country and because of their special status nobody would think of harming one. 
  Like the Canada Goose, with fewer natural predators and shrinking habitat they have moved into urban areas where they cause alot of trouble.  Crap and wood chips, mud trails everywhere, chewed telephone poles and park benches, trees cut down and dams built across roads etc. and  always the traffic snarls while we wait for them to waddle off the road. Kinda like the cows in India.  Its unethical and illegal to shoot them and relocation schemes don't work very well.  Toronto has an especially severe problem    

Beavers, sacred in Canada, are a common sight on city streets.

 

[754]

Lots of us Canucks are eager BEAVER OBSERVERS..

 Ooooohhhh yeah !!!!!

[fuzzybutt]

hell Terry, i live 2 hours or so from Ft Stewart, lots of hogs there too. if youre ever in the area...........

[Terry in Australia]

No worries mate, I'd be happy to, we are talking about hogs of the four legged variety, yeah? 

[sandcastcb750]

So, you guys like shooting beavers?

[Whitehurst]

I used to Hog hunt when I was a kid in Napa Ca. My choice was an old Winchester vintage saddle mount 30/30 lever action - it would get em every time. My Back up was a Ruger 45.
Pig Hunting was fun, and the best part, eating it.

[kghost]

We used to shoot them out of a Bell 206 helicopter

[Rocking-M]

Naw Dave, we'd shoot the 300 lb-ers with a 22 (a little bigger than a beaver). It was the annual family hog killing time.
Just walk up and right tween the eyes, however if you hit them to high it would bounce off.
That's the reason not everyone was allowed to shoot them.

I use to trap and shoot beavers in the swamps in the winter, they presented quite the challenge to get the
good head shot. Not much of it sticking up out of the water. Now don't tell me they don't kill beavers
up there, heck I though Canada was founded on the fur trade. 

[sandcastcb750]

There is shooting beavers, and then there is shooting beavers......

I was thinking that one may be more intersting than the other.