Saw that Discovery Channel "pig bomb" show

[MCgunner]

I'd not yet seen it, was on last night. Man, they sure make pigs sound dangerous, busting into peoples homes and attacking them? .... Killer hogs on the loose. ROFLMAO! It was comical to watch, I must say. Made hogs out to be more dangerous than polar or kodiak bear, crocs, gators, rattlers, killer bees, and lions all rolled into one. Whew, who knew?

Anyone else watch this crock of bovine excretion? All the attacking hog shots they showed were of hogs attacking chase dogs. Well, DUH, of course you're going to see their mean side when they're being attacked by dogs! They made it sound like you couldn't get out of your truck with hogs around without being laid open by a 400 lb pig.

Mmmm, maybe I should nail the doors of the house shut to keep the pigs out....

 

[Mitch from LA]

I haven't watched it, because I was afraid it would turn out exactly as you described it. Pigs are a big problem, but not as a direct threat to humans. They destroy habitat and displace native species, as well as contaminating water sources.

The problem with killing them is that they are extremely intelligent and have a ridiculously high biological potential. They get good at avoiding humans quickly and generally don't fall for the same trick/trap twice. The current stop-gap measures employed to keep feral pig populations in check are never going to be completely effective.

Some of the Discovery channel's new programming is sensationalistic and in many cases ridiculous. The National Geographic Channel can be just as bad.

 

[22-rimfire]

I watched it and it confirmed my attitude that you should shoot them on sight if possible. They breed like rabbits.

I guess MC you missed the hog running at that guy in the field and knocking him down.

I think the problem has a great deal of merit and the general public needs to be aware that they are becoming a problem. They keep spreading out and the damage is quite substantial. I have seen quite a few places in Cades Cove in the Smoky Mt NP where the hogs have just rooted everything up. Kill them. Like the snake issue in Florida, some flexibility needs to be built into WMA, NP, and National Forest rules as far as taking wild hogs.

 

[Cosmoline]

Those channels seem to be getting more and more nonsensical all the time.

 

[Birdmang]

Wouldn't a public opinion of them being dangerous and out of control lead to shooting/hunting them being easier/less regulated?

I don't see that as a bad thing.

 

[ArmedBear]

I haven't seen fit to pay for the drivel on cable for years, now. Leaves more money for Sporting Clays.

But you really disappointed me, MCgunner! I was expecting some exploding pigs. Oh well. That I'd want to see.

 

[Mitch from LA]

I watched it and it confirmed my attitude that you should shoot them on sight if possible. They breed like rabbits.

I guess MC you missed the hog running at that guy in the field and knocking him down.

I think the problem has a great deal of merit and the general public needs to be aware that they are becoming a problem. They keep spreading out and the damage is quite substantial. I have seen quite a few places in Cades Cove in the Smoky Mt NP where the hogs have just rooted everything up. Kill them. Like the snake issue in Florida, some flexibility needs to be built into WMA, NP, and National Forest rules as far as taking wild hogs.

I can agree with that. Part of the problem is that in many places pigs are viewed as game animals rather than a dangerous nuisance. They are very good at destroying preferred habitats (e.g. wetlands) and displacing native species.

I would like to see state agencies as well as the USFWS and USDA-APHIS turn to the public for help.

 

[MCgunner]

I guess MC you missed the hog running at that guy in the field and knocking him down.

Yeah, the guy surrounded by dogs and hogs. More to that shot than a guy strolling through the woods.

I guess, maybe, history channel will be on tonight to explain how all the hogs got here from space aliens. And, then, there's the ghost shows...wow, great programming.

Yes, hogs are spreading like mad, hogs are becoming more wild as they go through generation after generation. That doesn't mean they're crossed up with European hogs, though that might be the case, don't know, but at any rate they aren't evil pig monsters looking to eat people. They're all over my place and I hardly ever see one in daylight. Let the sun go down and they come out to play. They lay up in the heat and they are looking to avoid people. There are people that live down there and we haven't had a big problem with hog break ins and un-provoked attacks. I've been attacked by a hog, before, but in his defense, I attacked him first. I learned about shot placement on hogs from that one.

Wanna see what evil is, set your dogs on to a pack of Javelinas. They will make short work of dogs, no need to call the vet. There won't be enough left to patch up. LOL!

I know hog numbers are going crazy since about 1990. There were parts of that docudrama that I agreed with . They do seem to be getting farther and farther removed from barnyard pigs, too, and wilder, but that's a natural genetic thing, not necessarily proof that they are breeding with wild European stock, though that truly might be the case. They just over-did the evilness of pigs and their threat to humans, to the point of comedy IMHO.

 

[MCgunner]

One thing that show did is sort of show hunters in a good light, saviors of the public, in fact. Where's my superhero cape?

 

[Arkel23]

I think that show made me think about buying a new gun.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

MCgunner, you are late to the table but you brought good food. See the producers for your superhero cape. You will need a sidekick.

I posted the gist of this previously. I thought the show was more hype than science or logic. Some I thought was a bald-faced form of misrepresentation.

So the population is growing, supposedly getting bigger and more aggressive. They desparately want to make some connection with the Russian boars. Strangely, this has been going on for years and while they brought a genetic scientist to the show who was working on determining if Russian genes were causing this ballooning, intimated that this was the cause up one side and down the other, the geneticist had no data to support the claim. ***? We have thousands of bubbas and their cousins killing "Russian boars" all over the south, doing it for years, and no genetic data to support the claims? How is this remotely possible?

They claim the pig bomb in the US is likely from the influx of Russian boar genetic material, but claim the pig bomb is going off in Europe as well. They have always had Russian boars. So what accounts for their pig bomb?

I really liked how they identified the size, musculature, etc. of a Russian boar in a night vision game camera image that ONLY caught eye shine of some animal. How the hell the identified eyeshine as being Russian boar is completely beyond my level of comprehension as it appeared to me that they simply took eyeshine of some animal of indeterminate species and drew a line drawing around it of a large male Russian hoggy and pronounced the identification. To me, that just seemed like blatant misrepresentation of the available data.

They have a lot of folks identifying Russian boars on the show based on phenotype (observable characteristics, size, shape, coloration) as if those phenotypes are absolutely diagnostic of genotypes (genetic code). The problem with phenotypes is that many of the feral hog phenotypes seem to match Russian boar phenotypes and so you have people calling lots of pigs Russian boars when they are just feral and maybe long term, multi-generational feral. They have failed to come up with clear cut traits that separate out simple feral hogs from supposed Russian boars.

 

[Flintknapper]

Saw that show about a month ago.

75% of it was absolutely laughable.

The "Discovery" channel has turned out some really bizarre stuff lately.

Me thinks the staff needs to back off the Bongs, Mushrooms and Video Games just a tad. They might actually "discover" some facts if their imagination's weren't running away with them.

 

[22-rimfire]

I don't think they are likely to turn into man eaters or man hunters. I think they are a nuisance species that needs to be controlled. Humans are part of the problem trapping them and moving them to areas for private hunting reserves. (It's a money thing.)

I think the program was a little exaggerated, or it seems to be. I'm not an expert. The Russian Boar thing may be a stretch, but like most animals, the largest and strongest generally breed and those big pigs that look like boars may perhaps be genetically pushing the hogs further away from their domesticated cousins.

Whether the business about Russian boars is accurate, I don't know and they don't know. I have seen very large solitary black boars that people refer to as "russian boars" in Texas. I do know they were big piggies.

 

[.38 Special]

Yeah, it was pretty silly. But I did appreciate that such shows could have the general public crying out for more armed men in the woods taking care of this "problem". I just hope the population explosion makes it to Southern California soon. I can't wait for the back yard pig shooting!

 

[MCgunner]

I live on the edge of a small town, inside the city limits. There's heavy cover behind my fence, but they cleared a bunch of it out when they build a superwalmart on the bypass a while back. Before they'd done that, there were hogs back there. Guy I knew at work had hog dogs, was running them in the city ditch and that property back there. The heavy cover was along the ditch, the field was a corn field. They caught one, stabbed it (no guns), drug it back out to the truck which was parked about 50 yards from my driveway on the shoulder. A cop stops, arrested 'em for trespass. They caught the thing on city property. I'm just glad I didn't see 'em down there and walk down there to check it out. I think he did get probation over the incident. Far as I'm concerned, he was doing the city a favor, but I guess they didn't see it that way. If there was still brush back there, I might be temped to set my trap just across the fence, but most of it's been cleared out.

 

[qajaq59]

They did hype it a bit. But it's fun to watch that many hogs running around. Of course you'd likely have to pay a fortune to hunt where they filmed it.