A Pennsylvania newspaper reported a couple years ago there were 2,000 wild pigs in Kansas with trouble spots in Sumner County, Clinton Reservoir, and Cimaron National Grasslands.
Have any been spotted in Elk County?
Quote from: W. Gray on June 20, 2009, 02:38:23 PM
A Pennsylvania newspaper reported a couple years ago there were 2,000 wild pigs in Kansas with trouble spots in Sumner County, Clinton Reservoir, and Cimaron National Grasslands.
Have any been spotted in Elk County?
Waldo I don't post this to dispute what you posted just to expand the topic. I may be wrong but I like this topic and we may all learn something.
If I am not mistaken. The only wild pigs in the US are native Peccaries\Javelina which exist\existed in the Southwestern US. There are not wild pigs native to Kansas. The pigs referred to in you post would be feral pigs or domesticated pigs that live in the wild. I know some people will see my post as picky, but since I know you share my love of history, I think you will understand. Thanks for posting this; I would love to hear if people have spotted Peccaries or feral pigs in Kansas.
David
The sources I have seen say there are no Peccaries in Kansas.
There are, however, packs of wild pigs as reported in the Pennsylvania newspaper.
These are pigs that have either escaped their owners or were released by their owners to fend for themselves because of economic hard times.
I am curious to know if there are any wild pigs in Elk County.
I don't about Elk but here in southern Montgomery County around Coffeyville there is a few packs of feral hogs that are doing damage to the farmer crops. Also they are having a lot of trouble with them in Bourbon County around Ft. Scott. Some people say that hunters are turning them loose to have something to hunt along the one that get loose and other people turning them loose because they can't afford to feed them.
That reminds me of the huge ranch in Texas that let loose exotic wild animals and then charged hunters a fee--a huge fee--to track down and shoot them.
Don't know if that place is still in existence.
At one time there was a website from Texas where you could shoot exotic animals over the internet through a computer controlled gun with a web cam. Doesn't sound like fun to me and you miss the joy of being out in the "woods", the chase, etc which to me are all important parts of why I like hunting.
David
Quote from: Diane Amberg on June 20, 2009, 05:45:11 PM
Sorry guys, Javelinas aren't pigs, not even related. That was something I learned at the Desert Museum in AZ. I had thought so too.
Diane you are correct. They are not pigs.
David
Pig
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Theria
Infraclass: Eutheria
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Suidae
Subfamily: Suinae
Genus: Sus
Peccary
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Artiodactyla
Family:
Tayassuidae
Palmer, 1897
Species
Tayassu
Peccary and pigs are related like all primates are related, same order. I think a peccary and a pig look more alike than man does to other primates. Can anyone think or find something of the same order, different family that looks more alike than a pig and a peccary? Welcome to Animal Planet\Elk County. ??? ;D
David
I remember hearing (or reading) somewhere that a domesticated pig will go feral after only one (or two?) generations. David, do you know if this is true? If so, that's a very scary thought, considering how vicious a wild pig is.
The rumor is that a group of people brought up wild boar from TX and turned them loose so that the idiots could hunt pig up in KS like they did in TX...Never mind the fact that wild pigs are extremely destructive...You have to wonder about the stupidity of some people. ::) ::)
Well I wasn't going to say anything but my last trip through Kansas I saw a guy---rather big guy---at a waffle house and he had---
Larryj
There are several areas in Kansas that have feral hog populations. Besides the Bourbon Co ones already mentioned, there are herds on Ft. Riley, in the Ashland area, around Lake Clinton, and some here in Cowley Co on the Kaw Wildlife Area. There are probably more that I'm forgetting. Kansas has been very aggressive in trying to eliminate the herds. Trapping them is permitted by 'infested' landowners, and special teams have been hired to shoot them from helicopters. They have also been made illegal to hunt, in hopes of preventing any more introduction for that purpose. They are very destructive to crops and cropland, and also carry diseases that can infect domestic herds. The last articles I saw about them suggested that their populations were beginning to be controlled and maybe reduced a little, but certainly not to the point of eradication. That will be a very hard goal to reach.
Now this a subject that I know a little about. The former game warden here in CQ county says feral hogs are a problem and that he used to eradicate them on the spot. He said it was nothing to see two or three sows and litters a day and dispose of them. He said mainly by Hewins and Elgin on the river were where they were found. I have had pigs get loose and come back in two or three months and look better than the ones I had penned up on high powered rations. This is not always the case as feral hogs are actually low on protein which makes there snouts longer, there hair is long and wirey, and they don't grow as big as domestic hogs. If you've ever seen one or been at the sales when they sell them, they stink to high heaven. Once in Coffeyville someone brought in about 25 of them, and it like to have cleared the place out from the smell. Feral hogs are a big problem in Ga as seen in this
National Feral Swine Map
http://128.192.20.53/nfsms/
Dept. of Agriculture Page on feral pigs.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwdp/feral_swine.shtml
David
After seeing the damage done to land in Florida on Chuck's family's ranch, I can understand why it's important to try and keep them out of Kansas (or at least controlled). I spoke with the head of the Kansas Animal Health department one time, and he was setting up a hunt with helicopters for later in the week. He said it was hundrends of dollars per hour to rent a helicopter, and at that time (2 years ago) there was only 1-2 people in Kansas that were licensed to fly a copter that low and in that fashion.
Yes, it is illegal to hunt them, so that is supposed to keep people from "imprting" them and increasing the population.
Someone refresh my memory, but it seems that at one time one could kill a coyote and take the ears to the court house or some local place and receive a bounty payment of $1.25, or thereabouts.
The bounty got up to $2.00 in the 40's - The bounty for a crow's bill was 2 cents, a looooong time ago.
Fred's father was a fur buyer ---way back when --- but I don't remember the other bounties. Maybe Sarge can post on this.
Jo
( or I could do what is right and talk to Fred and Russell, but probably won't lol )
Two cents for a crows bill. Had not heard of that one. There must have been kids out there with sling shots trying to make some spending money.
I have not yet received a Prairie Star with your new column, but one of these days if the news gets slow you could recount some of the old bounties in Elk County.
I must correct my last post. I just visited with Fred about this and he said crow's bill was 5 cents. ( big bucks lol)
and the coyote bounty back then was $1.00, but it did get to $2. - in the 60's Fred had both girls with him and ran over a coyote, and each girl got $1. each.
But back to the crow story. Fred said he and his brothers "gathered" crow's bill and when they would take them to the courthouse, to collect the bounty, they had them strung on a baling wire. The person that paid the bounty would ask how many there were, because they smelled SO BAD they would just pitch them in the waste basket and pay the bounty. One year, he said they sold enough to buy his older brother, Russ, a new pair of overalls and his Mother a 100 pound sake of flour. That was a lot of crows bills, I would think.
There was no bounty on any thing other than coyotes and crow's bills, because the pelts of the other animals were sold to the fur buyers.
They might have been better off to look for Clorox bottles: I remember getting 5 and 10 cents each for them, 2 cents for pop bottles. And the smells we encountered on all those junk piles; PRICELESS! HAHAHAHAHA!
The first job I ever had was in the early fifties sorting soda pop bottles behind a super market at $1 an hour.
The owner did not want his regular workers sorting bottles because of how filthy they were. So he hired me.
When a person came in to the store he put his bottles in a buggy set out for that purpose. At my mom and pop super market, the owner worked on an honor system. Unless it was a huge load, a customer put their bottles in the buggy and at check out time the checker accepted his word that he had brought in bottles and how many. If the customer did not buy more soda pop, he was given a refund. If he bought more soda pop with equal bottles, there was no charge and no refund. It was a straight swap. If a customer brought in a large load, the bottle counting was handled outside and a refund given separately.
Most bottles were worth two cents. But there was also a refund on the six pack paper carton, which was three cents. These paper cartons were reused by the bottler if they were in reasonably good shape. They sold the unusable cartons in bulk to a paper mill. Additionally, a wooden case holding twenty-four bottles or four six packs also had a refund price. I do not remember Clorox bottles being returnable.
If you were an established regular customer, the owner would accept any soda bottle you had even if it were an off brand. He wanted your business. The off-brands were tossed out.
There were buggies and buggies of pop bottles that I sorted out on any given day, especially during the summer, and they were stacked in wood cases in a shed behind the grocery store. The pop man, regardless of the company he worked for, did not have to go through numerous buggies to find bottles belonging to his company. Some even refused to take any unless they were sorted beforehand.
I can attest to the smell.
One memorable pick up load involved bottles from a pig farm. The owner had stored the bottles for several years in one of his sties.
Many of the smoking grocery store workers found an empty bottle as a convenient place to put their still lit cigarette butts.
The thing that bothered me the most was during the night, mice would climb into bottles to get at the sweet residue. Once in, they could not get out. So they died right there.
I often wondered if the bottlers really cleaned out those bottles having a mouse body and the smell of death or a week old cigarette butt smell and refilled the bottle for resale. I suppose they did.
Quote from: Jo McDonald on June 22, 2009, 05:54:41 PM
I must correct my last post. I just visited with Fred about this and he said crow's bill was 5 cents. ( big bucks lol)
and the coyote bounty back then was $1.00, but it did get to $2. - in the 60's Fred had both girls with him and ran over a coyote, and each girl got $1. each.
But back to the crow story. Fred said he and his brothers "gathered" crow's bill and when they would take them to the courthouse, to collect the bounty, they had them strung on a baling wire. The person that paid the bounty would ask how many there were, because they smelled SO BAD they would just pitch them in the waste basket and pay the bounty. One year, he said they sold enough to buy his older brother, Russ, a new pair of overalls and his Mother a 100 pound sake of flour. That was a lot of crows bills, I would think.
There was no bounty on any thing other than coyotes and crow's bills, because the pelts of the other animals were sold to the fur buyers.
I think it was the winter of 69-70 that Stormy Greenburg trapped 75-80 coyotes. After putting the pelts up, before he sold them ,he cut the ears and scalp off and got $2.00 per pair of ears.
Speaking of bounties---if it was in my power as a child I would have put a bounty of ol Don McDonalds "head". I would get up Saturday morning just itching to watch Fury and Sky King & Penny but instead would clean a washtub full of carp that "old " Don had left in the yard. Carp fishing must run in the bloodlines, Huh Sarge ? :)
Sky King flew the Songbird. He also had a backup aircraft that was sometimes flown but I cannot remember the name.
1969-70 seems like yesterday to me.
When did Elk County stop paying coyote bounties?
I put a line on Plurk this week and not one person responded. It shows that Plurkers are too young to remember Sky King.
"Out of the blue of the western sky, comes Skyyyyyyyyyyy King!"
But then, I also posted a line from the fifties that surely nobody understood: Eeee Awww Keee!
Please tell me I'm not the only one who watched Lassie.
Waldo, I think it was sometime in the late 1960s. I remember collecting Coyote Bounties after I was married in 1964. The Coyote hunters got so thick that I think the County felt like they didn't need to offer a bounty. In the early days Elk County had Wolf Hunts (Coyote), with Greyhounds on horseback in the late 50s the Coyote hunters started using pickups. Thew Wolfhunters association was a really great group of men, Willard Morrss, Albert Criger, Chester Miller, Jack Durbin, Carl Russel, Norval Yantis and many others. They had an annual Wolfhunt on Horseback with many many Greyhounds, and they would ride all day.
I remember many wolf hunts when I was a young boy, and the hunters used a J3 Piper Cub to spot them, then the hunters would come lickity-split in their pickups to find the coyote(s).
Looking back, their communication mode was rather crude --- the pilot bolted a loudspeaker on the side of his airplane and hollered to the hunters below.
Of course, the coyotes understood English and ran the other way. ;)
Man, I'm glad there aren't any PETA people on this site! lol
Quote from: Rudy Taylor on June 23, 2009, 07:11:21 AM
I put a line on Plurk this week and not one person responded. It shows that Plurkers are too young to remember Sky King.
"Out of the blue of the western sky, comes Skyyyyyyyyyyy King!"
But then, I also posted a line from the fifties that surely nobody understood: Eeee Awww Keee!
Please tell me I'm not the only one who watched Lassie.
You are not alone! Of course, our reception in Moline was not the best but had pretty good sound! Really liked the Lone Ranger, Lassie and Sky King.
Hunters came into the cafe in Moline and I listened to their stories. Many fond memories of the personalities I had the previlege of being around. Johnny McSpadden was one of the most interesting.
My dad flew a Piper Cub in the late fifties. I remember flying over Moline in the plane and picking out our house.
Alice, I remember Johnny well, he was quite an individual, he did love his cigar. I don't think I ever saw him without it. What great memories to think back of people in our youth. I remeber two other colorful people from Moline that got me in hot water. I was dating a girl from Moline and we went to Howard to the movies on the way back to Moline that night we came upon two of Molines finest gentlemen stuck on the Railroad track. They had tried to go from Moline to Howard in their car on the track. They decided to get off the track at the old Barber place South of Howard, when they came off they got crossways and got their car hung up. Both of them were still pretty tight, they wanted me to take them to Moline so I did, I took one of them, who wasn't married to someones house that he wanted to get to go and pull his car out. I took the other one to his home and I had to help him to the door, when his wife came to the door and saw what shape he was in she gave me holy you know what for getting him drunk. She knew me as she and her husband took of the Corn with my oldest sister and her husband. I gave up a lot of star gazing time that night to help those guys and it just go me a chewing out. Later it was funny.
And I think I know who the gentlemen were. I remember the story. The love of a small town spreads quickly!
John never smoked the cigar. He just chewed on it. Or that 's all he did when I knew him. I tried to put a cigarette load in one of his cigars once. Had a lighter ready to light it for him. I had never noticed that he only chewed on them. He loved fooling me and knew all the time what I was doing. I thought I was being so sneaky.
Jarhead, one thing about Dad McDonald --- if anyone ever wanted any fish - all you had to do was to let him know, and he would sure get you some.
But I can imagine your wanting a bounty on him for Saturday mornings, anyway. You know, if he were to know that he would get the biggest kick out of that!! I loved that man! I have always said "Dad McDonald was my best friend, when I got into the McDonald family".