Invasive species

[HalfBreed]

So wild boars are an invasive species?

Does that mean no tags any season?

Excuse me while I lick my chops and wipe the drool off my chinny chin chin.

[HunterDave]

Parkland County used to have a bounty on them as well. You'd have to check to see if it's still on. Kill them all!

[HalfBreed]

Originally Posted by HunterDave

Parkland County used to have a bounty on them as well. You'd have to check to see if it's still on. Kill them all!

The Crux is the nocturnal nature of the species.

[nimrod]

Originally Posted by HalfBreed

The Crux is the nocturnal nature of the species.

Did somebody say night vision so we can go after those nocturnal buggers

[ccmckee]

Down in the south states they will build traps for them and use game cameras that email you when there is activity and
then shoot them.

[elkhunter11]

Originally Posted by nimrod

Did somebody say night vision so we can go after those nocturnal buggers

Except we can't legally discharge firearms at night, other than at approved ranges.

[saskbooknut]

They are a destructive, disease carrying, noxious pest. The war against them in the US is not being won, despite massive expenditures.
We are slow to respond to the threat in Canada.

[amosfella]

The thing with pigs is that you have to have a minimum of a 75% kill rate just to keep the numbers in check. Pigs can have litters of up to 12 piglets with a survival rate of 4-6 per litter. A female pig can have a litter every 133(+/- a few) days.

My cousin was telling me that he used to shoot so many wild boar up at Mayerthorpe that he only kept the bacon and the shoulder steaks. Said the rest was pretty tough.

Creating a feeding area for the pigs, and slowly building a pen around it and using a cell phone activated gate would be the best way to trap them. Have to have a live game cam as well. That's used by some in the US. To my knowledge, that hasn't been used in Canada.

[TrollGRG]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

Except we can't legally discharge firearms at night, other than at approved ranges.

Is that actually the law or is the law that you can't hunt at night?

[Justfishin73]

Originally Posted by amosfella

The thing with pigs is that you have to have a minimum of a 75% kill rate just to keep the numbers in check. Pigs can have litters of up to 12 piglets with a survival rate of 4-6 per litter. A female pig can have a litter every 133(+/- a few) days.

My cousin was telling me that he used to shoot so many wild boar up at Mayerthorpe that he only kept the bacon and the shoulder steaks. Said the rest was pretty tough.

Creating a feeding area for the pigs, and slowly building a pen around it and using a cell phone activated gate would be the best way to trap them. Have to have a live game cam as well. That's used by some in the US. To my knowledge, that hasn't been used in Canada.

It has been used here with mixed results

[nimrod]

I friend of mine had a buffalo farmer cousin, one night in the winter, the cousin went to feed his buffalo, fed them then was coming out of the high fence when he remembers he forgot the twine, turned around and when his lights from the tractor lite up the feed area, he saw 30 pigs chasing the buffalo's from the feed, he called his cousin my buddy, then at first light, he was in position, those pigs like to run in a line when in a hurry, he got 3 with a shot gun, shot the first 3 point blank, then the rest of them changed paths, now to far for the shotgun shot, then the pigs went somewhere else no more problems for the buffalo farmer win win for both this was in Alberta not sure where though

[KGB]

In Texas they hunt them from the helicopters using submachine guns. You can actually book the hunt for about $2000 ....

[ReconWilly]

Originally Posted by KGB

In Texas they hunt them from the helicopters using submachine guns. You can actually book the hunt for about $2000 ....

Well now i have to do that.

[urban rednek]

Originally Posted by ReconWilly

Well now i have to do that.

This is one of the original hog helihunting videos from 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89UliEiQQyU

If you want to give this a try, you will have to go south, as this would never be allowed for resident shooters in Canada. The government would rather spend money on importing "professional" shooters from overseas to do this job.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...-sharpshooters

[KinAlberta]

Recent articles:

America's Wild Pigs Are 'Completely Out of Control' - The Atlantic

https://undark.org/2020/09/14/feral-...tario-montana/



'Their numbers are exploding': Alberta losing battle against wild boars, says scientist
Author: Bill Kaufmann, Dec 27, 2019

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...ays-scientist/

War against wild boar being waged in Alta. | The Western Producer

By Barbara Duckworth
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Published: November 14, 2019

“ RED DEER — There is an undeclared war against feral hogs in Alberta.

“When they are contained on a farm and they abide by the fencing standards, they are considered livestock. Once they are at large they are legislated as pests. They have the same designation as a rat,” said Perry Abramenko of Alberta Agriculture.

Population numbers are uncertain but based on reported sightings and damage, provincial officials know they are increasing in areas north of Calgary, he said at the Red Deer...”

https://www.producer.com/2019/11/war...waged-in-alta/

Wild pigs a growing problem not many seem to care about | Alberta Farmer Express
august, 2019
https://www.albertafarmexpress.ca/li...to-care-about/



Here’s an interesting article about other invasive species. Only mention of wild boar is this belie but the carp story is well worth a read:

Beware the Prussian carp, the latest invasive species to terrorize Canada's waterways | National Post

“ ...
The Prairie provinces have wild boar — hard to catch, hard to kill and rather destructive. The Great Lakes have become home to a variety of gruesome-looking invaders, such as the blood-sucking sea lamprey, which lives in Lake Erie, but can thrive just as easily in a puddle of mud.”

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...adas-waterways

[tallieho]

I could only guess on this.You have the land owners permission,or with you.Can you then not shoot as many & when you want.Night time why not ..

[urban rednek]

Originally Posted by tallieho

I could only guess on this.You have the land owners permission,or with you.Can you then not shoot as many & when you want.Night time why not ..

In Alberta, it is currently illegal to discharge a firearm at night. Unless they change the law to allow night shooting, anyone caught doing so will face serious charges.
From the 2020 Alberta Hunting Regulations, page 28:

It is unlawful to:
11. hunt any wildlife or discharge a firearm between one-half hour after sunset and one-half hour before sunrise.

From the Alberta Wildlife Act, Chapter W-10, current as of February 20, 2018, pages 31 and 23 respectively:

Discharge of firearm at night
53 Except at a lawfully established and operated shooting range, a
person shall not discharge a firearm during the period referred to in
section 28.
1996 c33 s39

Hunting at night
28 A person shall not hunt wildlife, except by trapping, during
the period commencing at 1/2 hour after sunset and ending at 1/2
hour before sunrise the following day.
1984 cW-9.1 s30;1996 c33 s20

Although, some people live by the old adage "it's not illegal if you don't get caught" when it comes to wildlife infractions.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by urban rednek

In Alberta, it is currently illegal to discharge a firearm at night. Unless they change the law to allow night shooting, anyone caught doing so will face serious charges.
From the 2020 Alberta Hunting Regulations, page 28:

From the Alberta Wildlife Act, Chapter W-10, current as of February 20, 2018, pages 31 and 23 respectively:


Although, some people live by the old adage "it's not illegal if you don't get caught" when it comes to wildlife infractions.

Sounds like in really bad boar areas...we need more shooting ranges.

Seems like they are too smart to return.

If they travel together...maybe they need to radio tag a few with bright orange collars... they you can find the whole group during the day.

[Smoky buck]

All I know is I have not met anyone who has been consistently successful hunting pigs in Alberta and most have never even seen one

[Iron Brew]

I have only ever seen one, many years ago, right by the dairy queen in Stony Plain.

[KinAlberta]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

All I know is I have not met anyone who has been consistently successful hunting pigs in Alberta and most have never even seen one

Below, another couple articles from last year.

Sounds like hunters need to start discussing this problem more and more to determine some new and successful strategies:

Alberta resorts to drones, remote cameras to track elusive wild boars | Calgary Herald

“Ironically, hunters may be playing a role in the animals’ spread from the traditional hot spots of Woodland and Lac St. Anne counties, he said.

“Hunting usually involves just removing one at a time, but ...”

“Hunters are not helping us with eradication. They’re actually making the problem worse.”

... The non-native animals were brought to Western Canada from Europe in the 1980s to be hunted for sport but were officially designated a pest in 2008 after numbers of them escaped from their enclosures.”


https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...remote-cameras

Boar War - Alberta Views - The Magazine for Engaged Citizens

Can Alberta stop the destructive spread of wild swine?
BY NIKI WILSON OCTOBER 28, 2019

By the time Greg Gilbertson became a provincial fish and wildlife officer for the Alberta counties of Woodlands and Lac Ste. Anne in 1998, calls for help in dealing with wild boar were part of the job. Ever since Eurasian boar farms were approved in Alberta in the early 1980s, the wily swine had been making a break for it, knocking down fences, tunnelling beneath them or simply finding openings made by outsiders hell-bent on establishing a wild pig population to hunt. Free to breed like mad and roam the surrounding area, travelling bands of boar, called “sounders,” had begun busting into feed stores and plundering crops. Their rooting behaviour was particularly concerning. “I saw...”

Few people know the high stakes associated with a wild boar population better than Dale Nolte. Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Nolte is...”


It’s no different in Alberta. The swine have already begun to wreak havoc on sensitive prairie ecosystems, says wild boar researcher Ryan Brook at the University of Saskatchewan. “They love wetlands—the vegetation, eggs, nesting waterfowl, goslings, ducklings, frogs and salamanders. Everything wetland is right down the hatch.”

That’s a concern in the “Prairie Pothole” region—a series of wetlands across western and southern Alberta “that are important breeding areas for waterfowl,” ...”

https://albertaviews.ca/boar-war/

Bolding mine

[KegRiver]

I think the wild/feral hog issues we see is at least in part due to the anti gun anti hunting sentiment in the majority of our population.

I know a lot of locals who owned and used guns but weren't avid hunters, gave up their firearms to avoid the hassle of ownership.

A lot of them were farmers who would have shot any wild hog they see had they still had a rifle.

Even I, an avid hunter and legal gun owner, no longer carry a rifle on every outing into hag territory, to avoid having to worry about carrying the necessarily paperwork and the inevitable delay while it is checked.

There were wild hogs here. I was with my brother when he shot one. We were Deer hunting at the time.
The rest were destroyed by the county. They found the remaining bands one winter using aircraft then went in on foot and slaughtered the lot.

It's been over four years since one was seen in this county.

[MyAlberta]

You’d think a drone in winter would be the ticket.

[KinAlberta]

“Loves his job”

Research highlights the importance of community coordination when combatting spread of destructive feral hogs

“ When you think feral hogs, don't think of cute pigs playing around in a barnyard. Think wild boars—nine million and growing quickly—eating and trampling agricultural crops, damaging streams and spreading disease to livestock and humans.

"Controlling feral hogs is very expensive. For farmers,...”

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-highli...ive-feral.html




Guest View: Feral pigs and the tonic of wilderness | Columnists | thesouthern.com



“They will be, and are, they worst invasive species we’ll ever see,” says, Stephanie Shwiff, a research economist with the USDA.

I was once startled by a herd of them in the Irish Wilderness in Missouri. Their sudden snorting and squealing scared the heck out of me. My flight instinct, I have since learned, was justified, as they are not to be toyed with. Just last year, a Texas woman was killed by a small herd of wild hogs a few feet from her front door.

In Georgia, wild swine have become so numerous that the state has hired at least one full-time “Hog Control Technician.” His name is Cody Elrod. He lives alone on a barrier island, spends his entire work week finding and shooting wild pigs, and “loves his job.”

...”

https://thesouthern.com/opinion/colu...13fb771e8.html

[Smoky buck]

Wife thinks she may have seen one on hwy 39 at 5am this morning

Still most are not seeing them

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by KinAlberta

“Loves his job”

And probably is just under the 75% kill rate so a job for life. Lol

A great job if you are on Keto. Tons of bacon

[Grizzly Adams]

Originally Posted by HalfBreed

So wild boars are an invasive species?

Does that mean no tags any season?

Excuse me while I lick my chops and wipe the drool off my chinny chin chin.

If you can find them.

Grizz

[Twisted Canuck]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

Except we can't legally discharge firearms at night, other than at approved ranges.

A guy needs to come up with something like a semi automatic cross bow, nice and quiet......

[Red Bullets]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Wife thinks she may have seen one on hwy 39 at 5am this morning

Still most are not seeing them

Very possible and very rarely. About 5 or 6 years ago I saw a lone big boar 3/4 of a mile north of Hwy 39. A mile and a half east of Calmar. It was on the move going across a plowed field.

[Austin]

Originally Posted by TrollGRG

Is that actually the law or is the law that you can't hunt at night?

Firearms law.