Kentucky finalizing ban on hunting feral swine in hopes of slowing their advance
BY Herschel Smith
4 months, 4 weeks ago
Because an “educated” pig is harder to track or trap, Kentucky is taking steps to prevent the hunting of feral hogs known to damage crops, woodlands and potentially spread disease.
Kentucky wildlife management officials are finalizing a ban on the hunting of wild pigs in an effort to more easily capture them. Under the new regulation, pigs could still be shot if they’re damaging private land, although wildlife experts are encouraging landowners to instead contact the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources to have the animals removed.
Steven Fields, an attorney for the department, told lawmakers during a legislative hearing earlier this week that if a sounder — the name for a herd of wild swine — knows it’s being hunted, the sounder avoids humans and shifts its activities to night, making it harder to track.
The Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission, the governing board overseeing the KDFWR, voted in December to approve a regulation eliminating the existing year-round hunting season for wild hogs.
Ben Robinson, the wildlife division director at the state agency, told the board the department was trying to prevent “anybody from shooting a pig at any time” because it can make feral hogs hard to trap en masse, something state and federal officials have actively been pursuing.
“It goes against what we’re trying to do with our trapping efforts by educating these pigs, making them much more difficult to trap,” Robinson said in December. “We’re having a lot of success with our partners, [U.S. Fish and] Wildlife Service, USDA, in trapping these animals and keeping them out of Kentucky. So by allowing landowners to just shoot freely, that goes against what we’re trying to do.
Here’s a stunning prediction. This approach won’t work.
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On July 23, 2024 at 8:18 am, Woody said:
How it will work;
Report pig problem.
State will send someone to verify (only available M-F between 9 and 3).
State then will devise a trapping plan.
Plan will be subjected to hearings and/or lawsuits.
State will sub-contract the trapping out to the lowest bidder, or do the work themselves with the same hours as above.
Catch a few pigs (but not all), declare the problem solved and claim their plan is working.
Landowner left with losses of crops for the entire time and has to start the process all over but be shuffled to the bottom as the state claimed they already fixed the problem.
On July 23, 2024 at 9:43 am, Heywood said:
“Here’s a stunning prediction. This approach won’t work.”
That made me laugh out loud.
On July 23, 2024 at 10:12 am, Herschel Smith said:
@Woody,
But hey, the followed the advice of wildlife biologists who want to trap rather than shoot. No trappers around? No problem. Create a brand new business on the government dollar.
On July 23, 2024 at 5:02 pm, PGF said:
I say the whole thing is a ruse. Denying the average citizen access to harvest food is commie 101. The commies love starving people. Even if the intent is as stated, interruption of the food chain, even for invasive species, has multiple second and third-order effects.