What actually happens when you put a $40 bounty on feral hogs?

[lonepunman]

In light of the recent $5 bounty program initiated in Guadalupe County, I gave another listen to this Freakonomics podcast from a couple years ago:

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

The whole podcast is actually worth your time if you’re interested in wildlife management – particularly invasive species.

If you just want to hear the feral hog portion, start listening at 12:34.

The transcript is a good read as well:

http://freakonomics.com/2012/10/11/the-cobra-effect-full-transcript/

 

[Chopperdrvr]

That was interesting. I could have anticipated that people would bring in tails from elsewhere, but wouldn't have thought about the effect of the baiting and population boom.

 

[der Teufel]

That was indeed interesting.

 

[RattlesnakeDan]

My wife and I laughed about this new $5 bounty. It isn't enough to warrant extra time out killing hogs but it is enough to make dishonest people even more dishonest.

 

[Whosure]

I even contacted the County courthouse to ask if there were any landowners asking for help killing hogs. The county commissioners, judge, police chiefs and anyone else was clueless on anyone needing help. You want to give us $5, but you want to charge us $100 to get on your property to kill em.

 

[der Teufel]

My wife and I laughed about this new $5 bounty. It isn't enough to warrant extra time out killing hogs but it is enough to make dishonest people even more dishonest.

I thought about it. My wife owns property in Hayes county, and it's not far from Guadalupe County so I could possibly talk to some of the neighbor's and maybe shoot hogs on their property. But the tails for Hayes county have to be submitted in Dripping Springs which is 30 miles away (60 mile round trip). I don't know where Guadalupe requires one to go to submit tails, probably Seguin. I concluded that it's probably not really worth it to go through the trouble of submitting tails for the bounty. I'll just shoot what I can and not worry about the bounties. I don't get that many.

 

[lonepunman]

The specs for the new Hays County bounty are a little tight; tails can only be submitted on Wednesdays between eight and noon and one and five in Wimberly . No mention of any additional feature such as drawings for new gear, etc.

They did however, do a good job of keeping it quiet before the launch. This was presumably designed to prevent sandbagging of tails in anticipation of the program.

My primary hunting area is within the county. However, if I shoot two hogs, the $10 will just cover round-trip gas and a single bullet.

I better get a double with that round.