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Missouri Cattlemen’s wants feral hog hunting ban lifted

The Missouri Cattlemen’s Association is against the Missouri Department of Conservation’s ban on hunting feral hogs on public land which requires landowners to have a permit for thermal scopes and other equipment for hunting on their land.

Jeff Reed with Rolling Shoals Farm in Williamsville says his cow-calf operation is surrounded by Mark Twain National Forest which has become a harbor for feral hogs, which have caused a lot of damage, “We can document 40 to 50 Thousand dollars in loss, each year, to the feral hog.”

Reed says the Conservation Department has tried to trap the animals but with little success because of how smart the hogs are and the difficulty of moving the large metal traps in wooded areas. He tells Brownfield the department should not require landowners to have a permit for thermal scopes and other hunting tools, “MDC uses those scopes, so we should be able to use those scopes on our own private land without limitations and having to get a permission slip from mom to go shoot a feral pig, which is the MDC requirement now. You’ve got to get a, basically, a permit from a game warden to say ‘yes, you can get a thermal scope.’”

Reed says they killed hundreds of feral hogs on their property last year, “We quit counting when we killed 200 feral pigs and that was in, about March.” He says conservation MUST work more closely with landowners to get rid of the overpopulation of feral hogs.

Conservation’s Feral Hog Incident Commander Jason Jensen says letting hunters eradicate the wild hogs has NOT worked, “We actually encouraged people to hunt feral hogs for several years and that didn’t work,” Jensen told Brownfield Ag News. “What we saw during that period of time was that numbers exponentially increased and the range of feral hogs increased. We feel that was mostly due to illegal releases by people who were wanting to hunt feral hogs for that recreational value.”

~Brownfield’s Julie Harker contributed to this report. Listen to our interviews with Jeff Reed and Jason Jenson below:

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  This mdc commander Jason Jensen is lying but that is what the mdc does best we need to take the sales tax they get move it to road and bridge for a while than move it somewhere else no one part of gov should have this all the time
  **this comment was edited to remove language that is not permitted on the Brownfield website**

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  The Missouri Feral Hog Elimination Partnership is a cooperative effort by a number of state and federal agencies and organizations. A fundamental element of the partnership is to reduce illegal release by removing the economic or recreational incentive to increase feral hogs. The only way to do that is to ban hog hunting on public lands. Anyone who knows anything about that, and claims illegal releases are not happening, invites the old question “stupid or liar?”

  Eradication efforts, which are paid for by taxpayers, are expensive and difficult. Illegal releases make it much more expensive and difficult — maybe even impossible. It’s like arson, or breaking a levee during a flood. It shouldn’t just be a felony, it should come with a mandatory life sentence.

  Here’s a list of participants in the partnership:

  USDA Animal And Plant Health Information Service – Wildlife Services (USDA/APHIS-WS)
  USDA APHIS, Veterinary Services (USDA/APHIS-VS)
  USDA Forest Service (FSS);
  U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers (USACE)
  United States Fish And Wildlife Service (USFWS);
  Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR) Of The National Park Service (NPS);
  Fort Leonard Wood (FLW), DPW Natural Resources Branch;
  Missouri Department Of Health And Senior Services (DHSS);
  Missouri Department Of Agriculture (MDA);
  Missouri Department Of Conservation (MDC);
  Missouri Department Of Natural Resources (DNR);

  Organizations outside the partnership but who support it include:

  Missouri Farm Bureau
  Missouri Pork Association
  Conservation Federation of Missouri (and many of its 103 affiliate organizations in Missouri)

  Aside from hog dogger groups, the MO Cattlemen are the only group I can find that oppose it. The Cattlemen also consistently back the industry that likely brought CWD to Missouri. The ones that sell genetically manipulated frankendeer to be shot in a pen. You have to ask yourself what is it about their leadership that puts them so far out of step with the organizations and agencies listed above.

  Steve Jones

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  Make it legal and take the money being used in their unsuccessful eradication and offer a bounty on the right ear of a hog. You’ll see the numbers decrease. They increades at the rate they did prior is because that’s what pigs DO.

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  are there farmers out there that will let hunters on their property to shoot them? any websites to check?

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  The Cattleman/farmers are against it because they are the greetest humans walking and are always afraid they may lose a nickel somehow.

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