COFFMAN: Wild Texas Hogs to be Banned in New York?

[Oscar]

WILD TEXAS HOGS TO BE BANNED IN NEW YORK?

by Steve Coffman

January 26, 2012

A strange AP (9/4/11) article from Valley Falls, NY caught my eye.

“Wildlife officials in New York may ban captive boar hunts as they try to curb a growing feral hog population before it gets as bad as it is in Southern states, where roaming droves have devastated crops and wildlife habitat with their rooting, wallowing and voracious foraging.”
On some subconscious level, this article immediately began playing doublevision games with me. “officials in New York may ban,” “bad as southern states,” “devastated crops and wildlife habitat with their rooting, wallowing and voracious foraging. . . .”

The gist of it began to gnaw at my roots and acorns.

“Feral swine are breeding in three counties in central New York. . . . the wild population statewide is likely in the hundreds. . . .[but] that's small compared with Texas, where biologists estimate the feral hog population at around 2 million.”

And where most of them either end up in the gas & oil business or politics! I couldn’t help thinking. (Didn’t you just know that’s where I was going with this?)

“’We're not talking about Porky Pig getting loose from the farm," said Wildlife expert Patrick Rusz. “’Wild pigs . . . dig up cropland . . . damage ecosystems by rooting and digging . . . compete with native wildlife . . . carry diseases . . . and destroy wetlands with their wallowing.’”

“Yes, yes and yes!” I snorted aloud. Those gas fracker hogs in TX, LA and AR have made a godawful mess down there. Already over 20,000 wells---and they’re just scratching the surface.

In rural Texas, where these hogs have been digging in the Barnett Shale, the country air is now as foul as Fort Worth’s (and Fort Worth’s air is just south of Beijing’s). The once-sleepy country town of DISH, Texas is now a spaghetti dish of leaky, stinky pipelines and compressors. Remember that range “where the deer and antelope play?” Well, memory is all that’s left of it in their back section.

In Arkansas, where bold razorbacks are the State Beast, those gas hogs got so bad at causing earthquakes that the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission even imposed a six-month moratorium on fracking new wells.

Wow. The last time the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission did that? Well, let’s just say that “hydrofracking” would’ve just been a euphemism for being baptized by hellfire!

But back to New York and wild hog article: "‘Biologists will tell you, once they get established,’” Patrick Rusz warned, “’they're going to come to a neighborhood near you. The hogs will find you. That's the situation we're in."

You’ve got that down, Pat. They’re already gathering and slavering at PA border, ready to nose across the line at the first DEC SUUEEEEEE!!!
In the article, Dave Vanderzee, a businessman near Albany added: “‘I don't think New York is going to have quite the problem people think it will have with feral hogs. . . . But let's not find out. We should nip it in the bud.’"

You’ve got a point there, Dave, but I’m a lot less worried about the porcines than the pipelines! Heck, a roasted hog tastes pretty darn good, but you fire up one them gaswells or LP storage caverns and it’s really gonna ruin your afternoon, lemme tell ya.

My double vision abruptly jumped back into focus, and I could clearly see that we might need to keep an eye on that wild pigs thing. . . .

But these TEXAS GAS HOGS are the ones WE NEED TO BAN RIGHT NOW!!

Steve Coffman
Out near the Six Corners in God’s Country