Old Sid and The Other Wild Hogs
Okay, so you guys know Crazy Butt Sid Miller, the Texas Agriculture Commissioner who is so crooked that we’re gonna have to screw him in the ground when he dies.
Old Sid got himself an idea. Feral hogs are a problem in Texas, unless you kill them and feed them to your family, in which case they are not too bad.
So several years ago, Old Sid came up with an idea that it should be legal to shoot wild hogs from a helicopter. He pronounced that there are two million feral hogs every year. He accuses them of eating newborn lambs, uprooting crops and “entire city parks,” trampling across highways and causing more than $50 million in damage a year. Well, he got that passed but surprisingly, there were not enough weird Texans who wanted to kill animals from a helicopter.
So Old Sid has a new solution. He wants to make it legal to kill hogs with warfarin. You know, blood thinners.
It kills them slowly, often painfully, and turns their innards blue. It’s already wiped out swine herds in Australia, which later banned the product as inhumane.
Old Sid likes to watch things suffer. It’s where he gets his agriculture super powers. But, there are problems. More than 3,000 members of the Texas Hog Hunters Association signed a petition against Miller’s chemical war. They have some questions even outside of making hogs needlessly suffer.
“If this hog is poisoned, do I want to feed it to my family?” the group’s vice president, Eydin Hansen, asked the Dallas CBS affiliate. “I can tell you, I don’t.”
How will you know you’re not eating a poisoned hog?
And how will deer, squirrels, and other Texas wildlife not know that the hog poison is only for hogs? They can’t read worth a crap.
You think Old Sid gives a horse’s patootie about stuff like that? Oh hell, no.
His solution? He wants to put 10 pound lids on the poison. Damn hogs will need to be trained first to put it back when they finish, I suspect.
“We do have very serious concerns about non-target species,” state wildlife veterinarian Jim LaCour told the Times-Picayune.
Even if only hogs can get to the bait, LaCour said, “they’re going to drop crumbs on the outside.” Those crumbs might then be eaten by rodents, which might be eaten by birds, and thus warfarin could spread throughout the ecosystem.
So the newspaper called Old Sid and asked about these things. He poo-pooed them all and said – and I am quoting exactly here,
“If you want them gone, this will get them gone,” the commissioner told the Statesman.
And that’s all that really matters, you know. What the hell if they take a few people with them. Let’s just get them dead so vultures can eat them and get sick and then poop on … yeah, Old Sid.
Nice idea, Sid.
Thanks to Debbo for the first heads up.
Sid, just say you’re going to build a hog wall, and let it go at that.
1Is there some process at work here in Texas which distills and refines stupidity? I’ve never seen so much of it concentrated in one place before.
2Some jurisdictions have rules about disposing of old freezers and refrigerators so curious children don’t climb inside and suffocate. So, old Sid wants to distribute barrels of warfarin around the countryside. What could possibly go wrong?
Suggestion: have an old freezer or refrigerator? Have it delivered to Sid’s office.
3Wow. Jackals are kinder, gentler creatures than Old Sid. Smarter, too.
4Can’t wait for the eagles to die so Nugent and others can traffic in eagle feathers. With racist Sessions as AG the only ones getting busted for possessing eagle feathers will be the only ones legally allowed to possess them- Native Americans because they ain’t white.
5This is what comes of electing a jacka**.
6A solution! Finally! Thank you, Sid Miller!
DOUBLE WARFARIN MOCHA LATTE! MILLER!
And some for Greg, and Dan, and Louie, and Ted….
7Coffee all around!
Yes, he is an uncaring idiot. However, feral hogs are a VERY serious ecological issue. I attended a Nerd Nite presentation by a gent on them and they are extremely destructive to the land and whelp at way too fast a pace to keep control of them.
I think his suggestions sucks, but I also recognize that there may need to be some less-than-ideal solutions to counteract the threat to the plants and other creatures in the destroyed ecosystem if the hog population isn’t checked.
8Just how much proof does the State need in order to classify old Sid as crazy? From where I live, he passed the lowest bar on that a long time ago!
Go hogs!
9Star, yes, I agree. But THIS is his solution? Y’know they do have rattlesnake roundups. Why not one for the hogs? Granted, some of the participants will have to be redirected away from the State Capitol building in Austin because they are stupid and are hunting the wrong hogs, BUT… with proper preparation and coordination this could work. And there could be prizes! Biggest hog. Ugliest hog. (I know, sounds like the State Capitol building again.) This could work. And top it off with a hog barbecue and Miss & Boss Hog contest, I think we might have a winner!
Face it. Sid has zero imagination. Sad.
10“If you want them gone, this will get them gone,” the commissioner told the Statesman.
I want Sid gone. What will get Sid gone?
JAKvirginia’s suggestion sounds worth trying. And if there’s some collateral damage in the Texas Lege, well, so what. I don’t expect they’d be sharing their lattes with Dems anyway. Or do snacilbupeR drink lattes? Maybe bourbon would work better?
11Unlike domestic swine, feral pigs still are prone to trichinosis due to the nature of their diet. It’s why Momma always said “Cook your pork chops until they’re dead.”
She didn’t mean the pork chops were dead, she meant the round worms were.
If Texas wants to get rid of feral pigs, put a bounty on them and no bag limit, open season.
12Old Sid is Ag Sec, yet unaware that there are no toxicants registered for use on wild pigs in the United States, so poisoning is not an option. However, shooting, trapping and tracking the herds with dogs can be effective. Trapping is the most recommended solution, although I’m not a fan of trapping due to capturing other animals as an unintended consequence.
Texas, like NV, has its fair share of ammosexuals. Maybe let them loose for 3 days every few weeks (with adequate notice to the public) and let them shoot some pork. Might be a better solution than letting them shoot themselves, each other and innocent bystanders.
1320 or 30 years back, screw-worms were a big problem to the Texas cattle industry. That worm worked it way under the skin of cattle, eventually causing death. The problem was taken care of by dropping perhaps millions of sterile male screw-worm flies out of aircraft over areas where the worms were problems.
14I’m surprised that Sid, or one of his like, have not floated the idea of dropping millions of sterile male hogs out of aircraft, so they (the male hogs, not Sid’s friends) can relieve the tensions and urges experienced by female feral hogs.
Feral hods are a real problem. It only takes a generation or two before the regain the curved tusk of their ancestors. They do turn vicious. We have eliminated most of the wild carnivore, such wolves and wild cats, that might prey on these creatures.
15There is a year round open season on them but there are problems. First what do you do with carcass most of it can’t be eaten and what can be taste nasty. ( Trust me on this.) Pile them up and burn them, that’s a lot of fuel. Bury them, that’s a lot of work. These hogs ain’t stupid once the figure out the can’t run from the bullet they may charge and fair or not I would not like to have a three or four hundred pound tusk pig looking to gore me.
Something does need to be done and Sid is just smart enough to realize it but he is to stupid to consider the collateral damage of using rhis poison. Give him one point for trying and minus five for stupidity. Bless his little heart.
So Gohmert is the 2nd dumbest man is Texas. Sid is #1.
16I hear you have Deep Back Bench of Dumb over there.
And they are all Grand Old Perverts.
I cant comment additionally on the inadvisability of poison baiting feral hogs; others have done so and far more eloquently.
Certainly they are a problem but as Jane & PKM posted above in part, “shooting, trapping and tracking the herds with dogs can be effective. Trapping is the most recommended solution, although I’m not a fan of trapping due to capturing other animals as an unintended consequence.” The problem with trapping is what do do with them afterwards. Feral hogs resist re-domestication and reproduce at an astounding rate. Extermination is the only choice until someone comes up with an agricultural use for the carcass. From what I understand feral hogs have no economic value.
17Question: are these feral hogs the same thing as javelins? I hear some people make house pets of of them.
18A reference to this discussion.
tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/nuisance/feral_hogs
19maggie, javelina or peccaries are native wild swine. I believe the wild pigs Sid is talking about are descendants of European pigs, either domestic or “wild boar,” brought over here for farming or hunting purposes. Somebody thought it was a good idea at the time, like that moron who wanted us to have all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare so he released some starlings in NYC’s Central Park, and now we have 200 million of the damn things shoving out our native birds.
https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Javelina.php
20maggie, javelina (collared peccary) native to South America are not feral hogs (Sus scrofa) pigs brought over from Spain gone wild. However, making house pets out of them is a bad idea.
Micr, my bad for omitting a step. Once trapped, there really isn’t any recourse but to shoot feral hogs. It’s just my personal preference to simply shoot them to avoid trapping other animals in the process. We could also use a version Cole’s idea. Put lipstick on Sid and the snacilbupeR in the TX lege, then send them out hunting. If a few get shot or gored by the hogs, it’s win-win.
21There already is an open season on hogs, no bag limit. No bounty though. As for hunting them from helicopters, that did get rather popular with those with a lot of extra pocket money, and there have been several fatal accidents. I always said I would never get involved in that. Flying a helicopter is hard enough without having to worry about a fool in the back seat with many pounds of ammo and a blazing gun, pointed in whatever direction he feels like looking at the moment.
While flying EMS we flew some people involved in car/hog accidents, and those can be fatal. Hogs, like cows and horses, don’t quite understand the dangers of walking down highways in the middle of the night. If you drive late at night in rural Texas, be very careful. In fact, there was a fatal accident involving a deer on Highway 3 in Webster, a Houston suburb, a few years ago. The hogs tend to stay in herds, so if there’s one, there’s probably a dozen or so more, so look out.
22@maggie
javelina hogs would not make a pet. you’re prolly thinking of Vietnamese Potbelly pigs, which do make pets of a sort. I have a distant relative in town who has one named Lucy. Of course when I see Lucy running around the house I’m wondering how much sausage she’d make up and how quick my cuz would notice Lucy missing!
23@JAK
Great link dude thanks!
24Micr: You’re very welcome.
Miss JJ: Can we now refer to Sid Miller as S&M?
25He seems to be into that.
When I read the following line, I got a good laugh out of it.
“And how will deer, squirrels, and other Texas wildlife not know that the hog poison is only for hogs? They can’t read worth a crap.”
A Pennsylvania cousin took me dove hunting. We went to a picked out apple orchard and spent the afternoon imbibing and shooting. Yeah, I know, not the best combination of exercises.
When we left we passed through a section of the orchard that had not been harvested. Signs all around the perimeter stated NO HUNTING. That was when I realized that some dove can read. The power line running through the field was covered in dove above the no hunting area. About two dozen illiterate dove were on the other side of the road where hunting was allowed.
My cousin and his friends were not so literate. They piled out of the car and started shooting. Did I mention that hunting was scarce where we had been hunting? The landowner was not so forgiving when the shot pellets started hitting his steel roof.
26Micr,
Feral hogs do have considerable “economic value” in many areas.
With no limits and an open season on them, many landowners profitably supplement their seasonal deer and dove hunt leasing with those critters; there’s always a few yahoos wanting to go out and shoot something. With feral hogs there is some risk involved though. They are really ornery boogers, and often unafraid of humans; they can and will attack a person, and not just one of them. They’re pretty tasty too.
A feral hog can weigh 200-400 pounds.
Javelinas are a much smaller species, a big one might be the size of a Cocker Spaniel. But again, they are fearless and usually in a bad mood; although you’ll almost never get close to one, they prefer to just ‘fade away’ into the brush. Tasty too, if you put on lots of insect repellent first (fleas, ticks, etc.).
George in Lee County,
When the screw worm project was active, there was at least one laboratory in the Valley that produced the sterile male flies, in Mission, IIRC. There were many millions released both in Texas and in Mexico. They used some kind of geographic strategy, although I don’t remember how it worked. Mexico first? Or Texas first?
There was a big USDA scientific tropical research center in Brownsville, behind Fort Ringgold oops…Fort Brown (Ft Ringgold is in Rio Grande City- worked there too ;] ), and Texas Southmost College, I worked there sometimes.
I think that’s where the screw worm solution was worked out, although they did mostly tropical/semi-trop plant work there (citrus, etc).
I think the program was operated by the USDA, and they used a “cavalry” of horseback riding agents to patrol the border looking for stray cattle and cattle smugglers. Yes, a lot of damn fools try to get around any government rules and regs, no matter what it costs the rest of us.
About a decade ago there was an uptick in rabies among coyotes and raccoons in South Texas, and it was working it’s way into the San Antonio area. Some kind of targeted poisonous bait was devised and air-dropped all over S TX. I guess it worked, and didn’t seem to harm much else, IIRC (may have it wrong here).
In any case, Sid the Dumb’s idea(s) are just plain insane.
Warfarin is the very active ingredient in the original RAT POISON, developed in the early 1940’s IIRC..
It will kill anything with a sufficient dose ingested.
It was then ‘discovered’ by an observant medical researcher ~1950 who thought it might be of use as an anti-coagulant for certain human medical uses.
It worked, in very carefully calibrated doses, for thrombotic type conditions, controlling and disintegrating blood clots. And is only recently being supplanted, in some cases by new, less dangerous (perhaps) medicine$.
Warfarin remains dirt cheap, like that other ‘miracle’ drug, aspirin; the new ones are pricey I think.
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27I think the GOP should replace their elephant symbol (an intelligent, very thoughtful and kindly mammal) with that of the super nasty FERAL HOG. It is an absolutely perfect symbol for the Rethugs, in so many, many ways.
I have heard that those hogs are descendants of domestic pigs and very, very dangerous. Since the state of Texas doesn’t want to spend any money on health care, children, education or any other decent thing, maybe they’ll spend it on a hog bounty.
28Texas: Where legitimate medical procedures must be banned at all costs, but what the hell? Shoot wild hogs from a helicopter!
29Sid, sweetie, we don’t want the wild hogs gone.
We want the Republican hogs gone.
30We have a pestilence of feral hogs at our ranch. Juan-in-a-million has built two A&M designed 20 foot in diameter hog traps (one on our place, one on a neighbor’s) with the most functional Rube Goldberg remote control drop gate. He baits them with deer corn dispensed out of a deer feeder that hangs on the frame of an old swing set. Lord they are tacky. However, he trapped 27 at Jim’s and 11 at our place. He has night vision cameras, night vision binoculars, and the patience to sit in the truck 300 yards down wind until a whole sounder has entered the trap. Gate dropped. In the morning, reluctant sons, helpful neighbors, irreplaceable friends come to the hog killing. The very young are tasty and are a reasonable
size to dress and freeze for barbeque. Old boars are shot and dragged off to where buzzards can fatten up. The mamas join the boars.
Sid is a damn fool.
31TexasEllen: YOU should be Ag Commissioner in Texas! You and your crew seem to have more common-sense smarts than the elected one. And y’know, TexasEllen would look great on a bumpersticker. I’m just sayin’….
3295% of Texas is privately owned. So is it safe to assume that 95% the damage from these feral pigs is taking place on land owned by private individuals, corporations, and large ranches? Seems to me to be a personal problem if feral pigs are destroying your property. Seems like there is a lot of money to be made hunting feral pigs. Why does Sid want to take away this opportunity for some enterprising capitolist.
Any land owner that says they don’t want a bunch of liquored up yahoos recklessly driving 4 wheelers and tearing up the countryside to hunt feral pigs, doesn’t really have a feral pig problem.
33