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Title: APORKALYPSE NOW (Rick Perry's aerial assault on feral pigs)
Source:
The Daily
URL Source: http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/0 ... 111-news-helicopter-hogs-1-10/
Published: Sep 1, 2011
Author: Erik German With videos by Solana Pyne
Post Date: 2011-09-01 17:49:27 by Hondo68
Keywords: Texas “Pork Chopper” bill, shoot them from helicopters, aerial pig-eradication
Views: 9106
Comments: 15
Texas begins air assault on feral pigs, allowing anyone to be an aerial hog hunter HOUSTON — Texas has been messed with, and now it’s sending in the helicopters. Poster Comment: Perry will go after feral hogs but not illegal alien invaders, what's up with that?
Starting today, Texans are taking their ceaseless fight against feral pigs to the skies, thanks to the Texas “Pork Chopper” bill, signed by Gov. Rick Perry. Once limited to killing invasive swine on the ground, licensed hunters can now shoot them from helicopters — for a price.
“I’m ready to book a hunt today!” said David Fason, 48, who drove nine hours and paid $350 on a recent weekend to attend a class in Houston — the first of its kind — on how to safely shoot assault rifles at pigs from the air.
Of the 5 million or so feral hogs currently running wild and wreaking havoc in America, about half them are at large in the Lone Star State. Invasive pigs crowd out native species, feast on crops, tear up fields and raise all manner of horticultural hell. Statewide, hog damage to agriculture alone totals $52 million per year.
Texans have tried just about everything to stop the swine — trapping, snaring, and a free-fire hunting season that allows feral hog extermination day or night, 365 days per year, with any weapon a person can legally buy. None of it has worked.
Until now, aerial pig-eradication has been legal only for specially permitted companies that charge landowners hundreds of dollars per hour for the service and leave the dead animals where they lie. Under the new rules, hunters can now pay to fly. It’s unlikely many more of the pigs will be eaten, but helicopter hog-control could become virtually free for some landowners. And hunters say they’re eager to pick up the check.
“There’s no other place in the world I know of that you can do this without being in the military,” Fason said. “It’s an adrenaline rush I haven’t felt before.”
That rush involves skimming 50 feet above the ground in a chopper, leaning out the open door into the wind and rotor blast, and then leveling a gas-powered semi-automatic AR-15 at a 200-pound animal galloping across the open range. It hasn’t been a tough sell.
“It’s amazing,” said Ama Lukens, who, until today, was one of the few Texans legally allowed to shoot feral swine from the air. She’s an employee of Vertex Helicopters, a Houston-based company that charges landowners $475 an hour for airborne hog extermination and bills itself as the first to offer an aerial hunter safety course. Lukens posted a video of her first helicopter pig-shoot on YouTube, she said, and the response is either a commentary on her marksmanship or the potential public interest in these kind of aerial hunts.
“It’s got like 15,000 views,” Lukens said. “Just saying.”
The mounting interest has forced Mike Morgan, president and head pilot of Vertex Helicopters, to walk a fine line. He concedes there’s a business opportunity in hunters clamoring to pay $475 an hour just for thrills.
“The potential revenue is going to be overwhelming,” Morgan said. “You’re going to have every hunter from here to Alaska coming down here – and I say that literally because those people have been calling us.”
Still, Morgan, a former Army pilot, is preaching caution. “This is most certainly not sport hunting in any way shape or form,” he said. “This is an aerial eradication program.”
It’s not legally required, but Morgan advises any prospective shooter to take an aerial hunter safety class like the one he’s offering. Semiautomatic weapons and helicopters have plenty of moving, deadly parts, he said, and shooting while flying must be done carefully.
“Otherwise you’re going to have people shooting holes through rotor blades,” Morgan said. “And then there’s a $300,000 aircraft that’s going to be a smoking pile of dirt on somebody’s farm out there.”
Some have questioned the ethics of aerial hog-shooting — with objections coming from what may be a surprising group of critics. In addition to being an evangelical preacher, Phillip Swallows is in the business of wholesale feral hog-elimination. The East Texas-based entrepreneur buys live wild pigs from trappers and, in high season, sells 30,000 pounds of pork weekly to Texas slaughterhouses. They sell the meat as “wild boar” to upscale buyers in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Swallows advocates trapping the hogs, and says the aerial hunting will cause new problems.
“Half of what you shoot just runs off and lays there,” Swallows said. “Some die off in the underbrush. Some of them live. Trapping, when you’ve got ’em, you’ve got ’em — and it’s humane.”
Texas is one of the only states with buying stations that inspect live-caught feral hogs and market them for human consumption. The network of buying stations currently processes about 80,000 hogs per year, according to state figures. Swallows said the system ensures the meat isn’t wasted, and it avoids the potential hazards of animals being left maimed by off-target aerial shots.
Helicopter hog-exterminators like Morgan insist they follow an “overkill” policy, shooting each animal several times to ensure a clean kill.
“We’re going to come back and make sure that the hog is dead,” Morgan said. “Our goal is not to have a hog limping around.”
Texas wildlife officials said trapping and helicopter shooting are both essential tools for controlling the pig population. In the state’s heavily wooded northeast, tree cover obscures aerial views and trapping works best. But in the wide-open rice fields down south or on the open rangeland out west, helicopters have proven invaluable.
“They’re able in some cases to remove 25 to 30 hogs per hour of flight time,” said Billy Higginbotham, a wildlife biologist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service. “Why not use as many of the tools as you’ve got available to you?”
As a species, the hogs make a formidable adversary. By some accounts, wild hogs are smart as border collies, omnivorous as bears and just about as hard to kill. They have few known predators and deliver piglets half a dozen at a time. Females average three litters every two years and can become pregnant just one year after being born themselves. Higginbotham said Texas must cull its pig population 60 to 70 percent each year just to keep that population constant. He called hogs “the most reproductively active large mammal on the face of the Earth.”
First introduced in North America by Spanish explorers, pigs have been running loose in America for more than 450 years. Feral hogs are a mix of escaped domestic swine and hairy, tusked Eurasian wild boars. Prized game animals, the boars have been stocked for decades on private hunting preserves whose fences have repeatedly proven to be less than hog-proof. Feral hogs were once largely confined to the American South, but established populations have steadily spread to at least 37 states, including Michigan, California and, perhaps most recently, upstate New York.
In Texas, a relatively small, centuries-old feral pig population has exploded in recent decades, its growth spurred by what Higginbotham calls a “perfect storm” of hog-friendly factors. For one thing, sows have larger and more frequent litters when they’re well-fed. And they’ve had access to a lot of food in Texas. Residents distribute 300 million pounds of shelled corn each year in woodland feeders designed to attract deer for hunting, a $2.2 billion industry statewide.
But the hogs’ spread can’t be blamed entirely on the year-round shelled-corn buffet. Pig-stalking enthusiasts in Texas have often loaded the captured animals onto trailers and released them into fresh areas.
“I had a hunting lease up here that I thought it needed some hogs on,” confessed one 61-year-old former hunter from Longview. He said he now works full time trapping the offspring of the beasts he and other hunters released.
“Thought they would be exciting,” he added. “They was for the first year or two. Then they exploded.”
Texas’ feral hog problem has become so widespread that Higginbotham said more than 90 percent of Texas counties are now infested.
“Pigs don’t have wings, but they trailer extremely well,” he said. “There are two groups of landowners in Texas — those that have feral hogs, and those that are about to.”
Shellie Jones, 65, who owns land in East Texas, north of the town of Athens, has been locked in an exasperating fight with the animals.
“The hogs are winning the war,” Jones said. “They are winning the war in East Texas.”
He said wild pigs regularly rip up pastures on his 650-acre cattle operation so badly you can’t drive a 4x4 all-terrain vehicle across the damaged areas. Jones said he spends thousands of dollars each year on smoothing pastures with a disc harrow, fertilizing and then reseeding the ground.
“They are the worst. They are the worst species,” he said. “We don’t have an answer for these hogs.”
Some growers are welcoming recreational airborne shooters as a possible solution.
“It’s great,” said Frank Stasney, 61, a rice farmer south of Houston who said he’s lost as much as $50,000 per year to hog damage. “Instead of me paying these guys coming out here, they’re actually coming out here for free.”
Stasney said he currently pays helicopter companies about $6,000 per year to keep his 1,500 acres of rice free of hogs.
“We used to be hesitant about calling in these choppers because of the money involved,” Stasney said. But the animals rip open irrigation levees, tear huge wallows in planted rows and seriously pig out once the crop turns ripe. They can easily do $6,000 worth of damage in a night, he said, making helicopter shooting a no-brainer.
“Now you don’t event think about it. You call them,” Stasney said. “There’s just no other way of controlling these hogs.”
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
You know we have the same problem with the "2 legged" variety of feral pigs in D.C...... HHmmmmm..... Sounds like a new business opportunity, doesn't it!!!!
When asked by a Liberal what I bought my Granddaughter for her 1st birthday I replied, "MORE AMMUNITION"!!!! -----------------------------"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
The main problem with Texans is they think BBQ can be made with beef instead of pig, that's why they have an overpopulation of pigs. Anyone who knows anything at all about BBQ knows that it can only be made from pig meat. Now any BBQ connoisseur can argue about whether the dip should be vinegar, mustard, or tomato based, and what region produces the best, but everyone knows it has to be made from pig. Our friends in Texas should take this opportunity to enjoy some real BBQ and use their cows for steaks and pigs for BBQ, the way God intended. (BTW this map is wrong, VA is a vinegar based state, especially along the southeastern coastal region, just like eastern NC)
Still no time for Fukushima....LMFAO OR North Anna...pretty much anything nucklear. And when in doubt, and prayers for rain don't work.... kill something.....8D
Not one drop of nuclear rain has fallen on those hogs! Stuff those assault weapon mags, and let fly.
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
Not one drop of nuclear rain has fallen on those hogs! Stuff those assault weapon mags, and let fly. Be interesting to watch while the Texas Firefighters are losing the battle to save Possom Kingdom Lake. You'd think Texicans would have better things to do... guess not....8D
I rarely like pork ribs. I like beef ribs. mmm
When are they evacuating Florida?
When they treat your BPD?
So you think they are going to evacuate Florida. lol
When are they evacuating Florida? you actually think that your side is winning here, dontcha, A K? That the BAU Sweet Baby Hesus, Federal Reserve, Military is gonna hold the line. That the Usbp Ecocide, Fukushima, Tuscaloosa, Joplin and now Irene and New Orleans the next 5 days are just flukes....;} And that there will Be No evacuations from anywhere anymore, is some kind of victory for you and yours....;} We've left the Holocene and you and yours don't even believe it existed....
3+ VLCC's and all the Anti Freeze bp's Nalco could produce in a year. And with TS Lee, now coming ashore.
LA/MS/AL/FL should've been evac'ed. Anything that kills all the dolphins, whales, turtles, will kill humans as well. I won't be going there until I see what a Major Storm leaves behind. And the Macondo still gushing btw....;}
It's coming right up, probably hit the oil rigs and give the GOM a good stirring up... 000 BULLETIN ...TROPICAL DEPRESSION MOVING VERY SLOWLY...EXPECTED TO DRENCH PORTIONS OF THE NORTHERN GULF COAST... SUMMARY OF 1000 PM CDT...0300 UTC...INFORMATION WATCHES AND WARNINGS NONE SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT... A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR... * PASCAGOULA MISSISSIPPI WESTWARD TO SABINE PASS TEXAS...INCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS...LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN...AND LAKE MAUREPAS A TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE WARNING AREA...IN THIS CASE WITHIN 24 HOURS. FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST OFFICE. DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 35 MPH...55 KM/H...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. GRADUAL STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS AND THE DEPRESSION COULD BECOME A TROPICAL STORM ON FRIDAY. ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1007 MB...29.74 INCHES. HAZARDS AFFECTING LAND STORM SURGE...A STORM SURGE WILL RAISE WATER LEVELS BY AS MUCH AS 2 TO 4 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL ALONG THE NORTHERN GULF COAST IN AREAS OF ONSHORE FLOW.
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
. Sounds like fun, if they figure out a way for us to get the meat also. I'd do it, IF we could save the meat. Sounds like a TEXAS sized BUSINESS opportunity, (hey being second isn't so bad Texas). LOL! Geee HAW! BAR-B-Q!
Spoiled, stupid and ignorant, brain dead phuckwads, libTURD fools, tools, and idiots, are the real sickness; the messiah "king" obammy and his regime are only the symptoms.
No. This storm will only be pushing surface oil into the shore. New Orleans will be flooded. One more nail in New Orleans' coffin. The River Levees will not be breached...again... in order to 'save' NO. The Big One is a Cat 3+. And it's on it's way. Just not right now...;}
“They are the worst. They are the worst species,” he said. “We don’t have an answer for these hogs.”
#2. To: hondo68 (#0)
#3. To: Happy Quanzaa (#2)
#4. To: mcgowanjm, *Extended Clip Progressives* (#3)
prayers for rain don't work....
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#5. To: hondo68 (#4)
prayers for rain don't work....
#6. To: Happy Quanzaa (#2)
The main problem with Texans is they think BBQ can be made with beef instead of pig,
#7. To: mcgowanjm (#3)
And when in doubt, and prayers for rain don't work....
#8. To: A K A Stone (#7)
#9. To: Fred Mertz (#8)
#10. To: A K A Stone (#7)
And when in doubt, and prayers for rain don't work....
#11. To: A K A Stone, Fred Mertz (#9)
So you think they are going to evacuate Florida. lol
#12. To: All (#11)
And with TS Lee, now coming ashore.
#13. To: mcgowanjm (#12)
(Edited)
I won't be going there until I see what a Major Storm leaves behind.
Tropical Depression THIRTEEN Public Advisory
WTNT33 KNHC 020238
TCPAT3
TROPICAL DEPRESSION THIRTEEN ADVISORY NUMBER 2
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL132011
1000 PM CDT THU SEP 01 2011
----------------------------------------------- LOCATION...26.6N 91.5W
ABOUT 225 MI...365 KM SW OF THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER ABOUT 270 MI...435 KM SSE OF PORT ARTHUR TEXAS
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...35 MPH...55 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NW OR 315 DEGREES AT 2 MPH...4 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1007 MB...29.74 INCHES
--------------------
CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY...
------------------------------
AT 1000 PM CDT...0300 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL DEPRESSION THIRTEEN WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 26.6 NORTH...LONGITUDE 91.5 WEST. THE DEPRESSION IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 2 MPH...4 KM/H. A SLOW NORTHWESTWARD MOTION IS FORECAST THROUGH FRIDAY...FOLLOWED BY A TURN TOWARD THE NORTH FRIDAY NIGHT OR SATURDAY. ON THE FORECAST TRACK...THE CENTER OF THE CYCLONE IS EXPECTED TO APPROACH THE COAST OF SOUTHERN LOUISIANA DURING THE WEEKEND.
----------------------
RAINFALL...THE DEPRESSION IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAIN ACCUMULATIONS OF 10 TO 15 INCHES OVER SOUTHERN LOUISIANA...SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI...AND SOUTHERN ALABAMA THROUGH SUNDAY...WITH POSSIBLE ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 20 INCHES.
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#14. To: hondo68 (#0)
#15. To: hondo68 (#13)
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