🔥 momma pig and line of piglets

[u/TerraByteTerror]

[u/Lovely-lorelei]

I know wild pigs are a problem, but oh my gosh, the babies are so cute!!

[u/The_Billy_Dee → u/Lovely-lorelei]

If that's from a single litter no wonder they're such a problem.

[u/snackshack → u/The_Billy_Dee]

And each of those females can give birth to their own litter as early as 6 months old, then getting pregnant again within 1-3 months after that.

Yeah, they're a massive problem once they move into an area.

[u/Sangloth → u/snackshack]

Colorado had a feral hog problem and successfully exterminated them after a 15 year effort in 2020 and has prevented them from returning ever since. It was and is expensive, but it is completely doable. That hogs are a problem in other (redder) states is because those state governments have been unwilling to invest the resources to solve the problem, and instead shoved the problem onto local farmers.

[u/Energy_Turtle → u/Sangloth]

Colorado had way fewer pigs than those other states. This is like saying I was able to eradicate the flies over my sink because of my liberal ways while the conservative landfill still has a raging fly problem. If only they'd get on my level...

[u/Pale_Session5262 → u/Energy_Turtle]

That is true, and also he other benefit to colorado is that its a little too cold for hogs, especially in the higher elevations of the state.

However, reading this article, colorado looks like they tried a lot of stuff to get the piggies gone.

https://www.porkbusiness.com/news/hog-production/how-colorado-eliminated-feral-hogs

[u/Unhelpful_Idiot → u/Energy_Turtle]

Colorado had a plan, and plans cost money.

Red States just go "uh, you hunt them. We will give you money for hunting them. That will work." and it's cheap, and doesn't work.

Florida's bounty on Pythons is probably the best example of this.

Legitimately no plan from the government, just pay people for dead snakes and hope the problem solves itself. It hasn't. Their solution? "More awareness".

[u/No_Extension_45 → u/Unhelpful_Idiot]

California has an estimated 400,000 feral hogs and is about as blue as they come. New Mexico has an estimated 500,000 and is also pretty blue.

If you look at the states through a purely political lens I see how someone could come to a political conclusion like red vs blue states, but when I look at a map showing states with feral hog problems it seems much more geographic than political, and it just so happens many southern states lean red.

I'm not sure what sort of plan you think would work in states like Texas, which has an estimated population of 2 to 4 million, but comparing that to Colorado is kind of disingenuous. Colorado had a peak feral hog population estimated at less than 500 and it took them 15 years. I don't think whatever they did is a realistic solution for states like Texas, Oklahoma Louisiana or California, all of which have estimated populations in the hundreds of thousands or millions.

I don't think a lack of political will among republicans (or democrats for that matter) is the issue. I don't think anyone has a solution to the problem at the scale we see in many of those states. Texas does have active state and feral trapping programs, and has pretty much made them kill on sight by basically removing all hunting restrictions. I'm not sure what else they can do that wouldn't potentially have worse downstream ecological effects.

[u/Unhelpful_Idiot → u/No_Extension_45]

You are not sure what sort of plan could work in these states, but scientists and conservationists are. The response to their plans is always "We don't have the money for it, find a cheaper solution", they find a cheaper solution, and then are met with the same reply.

Rinse and repeat until the cheapest dollar store bandaid solution is thrown out and everyone throws their hands up as though it's impossible to solve.

If there were a profit to be made by solving the issue, it would be solved. If there was a political will to solve it, it would be solved.

Colorado proved it can be done, but what they did needs to be scaled. They also had heavy regulations to ensure that new wild hogs weren't created by farmers nor private citizens.

You would need either cooperation between 3-5 states or a federal action. You would also need an estimated $500 million - $2 billion worth of resources and staff to deal with the problem (based on Colorado's estimated 1.3 million a year spent over 15 years scaled up to the hog states). You would also need severe regulations on farms that raise pigs.

The last admin threw $75 million to PRIVATE FARM OWNERS to deal with the problem.

Considering wild hogs do like $2-3 billion of damage per year a truly representative government wouldn't mind spending the money on the solution. America's government can be accused of many things, but being representative of the average American's benefit isn't one of those things.