Texas Plans Feral Hog 'Apocalypse' State approves use of poison

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azmastablasta

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Texas Plans Feral Hog 'Apocalypse'
State approves use of poison

By Rob Quinn Feb 23, 2017 3:25 AM CST

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is stepping up his war on feral hogs with a move that he says will bring about an "apocalypse" for the crop-destroying animals. Miller has approved the use of the pesticide warfarin to poison the state's 2.5 million or so wild hogs, reports Gizmodo, which calls the step "chemical warfare" but notes that feral hogs cause an estimated $1.5 billion in damage nationwide every year. "They're so prolific, you can't hardly keep them in check,” Miller tells the Austin American-Statesman. "This is going to be the hog apocalypse, if you like: If you want them gone, this will get them gone."

Miller—who introduced a law allowing hunters to shoot wild pigs from helicopters—says the product he approved for statewide use, "Kaput Feral Hog Lure," doesn't pose much danger to other animals because hogs are especially vulnerable to warfarin, and it would take higher doses than the bait contains to harm most other creatures. A Texas Hog Hunters Association spokesman, however, says they oppose the move and would rather stick to hunting and trapping. He tells CBS News he's worried about the risk of feeding poisoned pork to his family, though Miller says that in a "dead giveaway," the poison will turn hog fat bright blue. (A bacon ingredient is also being used to poison pigs.)

http://www.newser.com/story/238752/texas-plans-feral-hog-apocalypse.html
 
Originally Posted By: azmastablastaHe tells CBS News he's worried about the risk of feeding poisoned pork to his family, though Miller says that in a "dead giveaway," the poison will turn hog fat bright blue. (A bacon ingredient is also being used to poison pigs.)l

How long does it take the additive to reach the fat and saturate it enough to change the color? What if you shoot one that has injested the chemical recently but it hasn't had time to change the fat color?
 
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Are hogs that much more susceptible to warfarin that deer, turkeys, exotics, illegal immigrants, and whatever else may wander by the bait/poison site?

I know these animals cause millions to billions in damage each year, I'd be very wary of spreading a poison like that around the landscape. Lots of opportunity for secondary poisonings.
 
What I have yet to understand is all the whining about how much damage the hogs are doing but when you offer to help get rid of them, via hunting, they want to charge you. If the hogs are that much of a threat, they should at least offer to pay for ammo. Makes me wonder if the hogs are really that much of a problem.
 
They are, but like coyotes, we just can't kill enough of them sport hunting to really make a difference. Full-scale killing from helicopters can help, but it's expensive and there's only so many hunters who can afford several grand per outing to whack pigs. And when it gets down to it, I suspect (and have heard from landowners) that the liabilities associated with having hunters on their property just isn't worth it. Hence the push for other methods of control. I just don't like the thought of poison spread across the landscape.

In answer to my question, I did read this elsewhere on the 'net. Take it for what it's worth.

Originally Posted By: borrowed from another chat forum
On Tuesday, the Texas Agriculture Commissioner’s Office emailed CBS11 this statement:

We did not make this rule change to list warfarin as a state-limited-use pesticide without fully reviewing the data and research available on this product. Kaput Feral Hog Bait has been researched extensively and field-tested in Texas over the past decade in partnerships with various state agencies including TDA. Hogs are susceptible to warfarin toxicity, whereas humans and other animals require much higher levels of exposure to achieve toxic effects.

EPA approved Kaput Feral Hog Bait’s pesticide labeling with the signal word “Caution,” which is the lowest category of toxicity to humans requiring a signal word. Although the EPA did not list this product as a federal restricted-use product, we made the decision to list warfarin as a state-limited-use pesticide in Texas so that purchase and application is made only by educated, licensed pesticide applicators who have been trained specifically on the use of this product. The product may be only bought and used by licensed pesticide applicators when dispensed in specially-designed hog feeders that have weighted lids that only open from the bottom, making it difficult for other animals to be exposed to the bait.

Warfarin has been studied extensively in animals and is practically non-toxic to birds. Due to the insolubility of warfarin in water, there should be no impact to aquatic life. Non-target wildlife, livestock and domestic pets would have to ingest extremely large quantities over the course of several days to reach a toxic level of warfarin in the bloodstream. In the event of unintended exposure, the antidote, Vitamin K, can be administered by a veterinarian. In general, secondary exposure to other animals is low because the levels of warfarin in target animals are generally too low to be toxic to either a predator or scavenger.

Warfarin at 0.005 percent as a feral hog toxicant has been shown to have a low level of residue in hog meat, especially in muscle tissue, which is what humans typically consume. One person would have to eat 2.2 lbs of hog liver–where the warfarin is most concentrated in the body–to achieve the same exposure as a human would receive in one therapeutic dose of warfarin (current therapeutic levels range from 2 to 10 mg daily). Warfarin metabolizes and exits the body fairly quickly, so a hog that was trapped and fed for several days prior to processing would most likely not have any warfarin present at the time of slaughter.

In addition, hogs who have consumed the warfarin bait will have blue dye present in the fatty tissues as soon as 24 hours after ingestion. The dye builds up in the fatty tissue, so the more bait the hog has consumed, the brighter blue the tissues will be, signaling hunters that this hog has ingested the bait. Blue dye is present in the fat directly underneath the skin as well as in the fat deposits surrounding organs and in the aforementioned liver. All will take on the characteristic blue tint of the dye, which serves as a visual indicator of bait ingestion.
 
Desert Ram:

I concur with some thoughts about poison but look at the history.... The Feds turned sarcoptic mange loose back in the early 1900's to try and kill off yotes and look what that has done....

Remember, I said I agreed with some of the thoughts on poison. Also, USDA has issued permits all over the place for cyanide "coyote getters" and those things are dangerous as heck......
 
Originally Posted By: pyscodogWhat I have yet to understand is all the whining about how much damage the hogs are doing but when you offer to help get rid of them, via hunting, they want to charge you. If the hogs are that much of a threat, they should at least offer to pay for ammo. Makes me wonder if the hogs are really that much of a problem.

I think it's b/c people are willing to pay to shoot those buggers. There's a spot in Central VA that has pigs but the #s are decreasing. We've got a lot of small farms here - 10, 20, 200, 500 acres... With people hunting all these areas, it's "easy" to eradicate them over time. But from what I've seen in TX (only hunted there 5 times), the ranches are enormous. We hunt a 26K acre ranch & the neighboring ranches are 10k & 50k acres, not sure about the other one but it's huge also. There's just no way that you'll be able to effectively shoot enough pigs to even make a dent in the population on a ranch that size unless you were to sell some serious pig hunts. There's 1 field we see no less than 100 hogs in EVERY time we drive by (daylight hours).
 
Originally Posted By: pyscodogWhat I have yet to understand is all the whining about how much damage the hogs are doing but when you offer to help get rid of them, via hunting, they want to charge you. If the hogs are that much of a threat, they should at least offer to pay for ammo. Makes me wonder if the hogs are really that much of a problem.

Exactly my buddy from Alaska wanted to meet in Texas to do a hog turkey combo. I was all about it until I found out I could only shoot 1 hog for 1200 bucks. They liability issue is easily fixed with insurance. I have $2,000,000 on each of my leases for under $200 per property.
 
i dunno if its so much of a liability issue, or if they feel that they're being left out because the neighbor is selling hog hunts for top dollar.


i'm sure some of it is to weed out the yahoo's. if people found out the pig hunting was free down in TX - likely every tom, dick and harry with a gun would run down there to try to get in on the action and have dumdums tripping over each other.

it'd be like fishing tippy dam when the salmon are running.
 
If the Hogs are causing the damage that has been reported and the reasoning for allowing aerial shootings.

Then, using poison was going to be the next step.

I get that there is now a large group of hunters that see this as a great sport and many are selling the stuff to facilitate this.

They may be worried that poisoning will actually take care of it, and eliminate their hunting and need for ranchers to allow them to come in and hunt.

If hunting was having an impact on the numbers they wouldn't have allowed the poison, it's not, so this is the next step for the ranchers and farmers.

I don't blame them, i would bet that it's cheaper to get this poison vs. hiring the hunters to come in and just reduce vs. irradiate.


On a funny thought, the article talks about a raccoon getting into the poison.. But, if they are right, just imagining a coon running around dropping glowing blue turds is kinda funny. If a hog then eats that turd, will it still kill them?
 
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