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.22wmr for pigs

I hear that Jmiller, I just like the additional year round targets and freezer filling.
 
I realize I won't change your mind here, but one can justify any sort of environmental degradation or invasive species impact using the above logic.

The reasoning that 'Other things are worse' or just randomly assigning the professional opinion of "biologists would say..." just directly ignores or is meant to diminish the fact that hogs have negative affects on native species and this is proven empirically. If you don't value the preservation of native species, and native communities/landscapes they comprise, that's fine just say so, but recognize that's where the difference of opinion lies, as some people do value those things.

A main difference between hogs and general development, is that we're as a society, sort of dependent on some amount of development for meeting our basic needs. Hogs are an issue on lands we set aside specifically to be spared from development, so they're an additive threat. It's not a 'pick one or the other' as the bad guy situation.

And again, Im totally down with hog hunting as there's no negative impact from that. I'd just prefer a landscape without them entirely.
You make fair points. All I have to say is that increasingly I think conservation is not as simplistic as we think it is. The delta I live on has been ocean floor, and it's been completely dry. Both extremes for thousands of years at a stretch. The earth as a whole is constantly changing. Mass extinctions are regular phenomenon. Animals regularly out compete and displace or eliminate species with and without our help.

We tend to think of ourselves as somehow separate and distinct from the natural world, when in reality we're just another species operating in the framework. I increasingly think that conservation is really just selfish self-preservstion. We're bent on maintaining the status quo because we're on top as it is and if it changes, we don't know what happens. But we can't. At the end of the day it's just about what we like. Nobody is concerned with wiping out the bacteria that produces the tetanus toxin or killing all the rats. But we gotta save the whales. We like deer and don't like hogs or coyotes. Even though there's an argument to be made that if they can survive without our help and other species can't that they're the ones who should inherit the earth.

It's a relief to me. No matter what we do, one day we'll bite it as a species and the swamp will take it all back. It'll be different, but it'll rock on until the sun goes supernova and nukes everything.
 
The other side of that is the neighbor on my hunting land is a pig farmer. He has told me if I ever see a pig to kill it DEAD. The amount of regulations the state and feds put on pigs is crazy. I have hunted there for over 10 years and have never seen a pig. We don't have wild boar where I hunt in Danville, VA. He has told me other pig farmers have problems with wild boar breaking into the buildings to breed the domesticated pigs. Then there is a hole and they loose the whole building. Those pigs will go from pink, no tusks to black and tusks in 3 years.
 
I have some old friends that have had the same hunting lease for most of their life. They all share the same observation: Once the hogs moved in, the deer population decreased.
 
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