Latest from TP&W, tests being run with Nitrous Oxide resulted in birds dying after eating corn coated with the poison.

The program has been set back for possibly up to two years.

Bad news for the farmers and cattleman. Bad news for Wildlife who will have to compete for groceries. Bad news for Texas and the South as a whole.

Well the deal is at this point work is going on to find a better "Hogs Only" method of getting the poison to the hogs. I really do not think the birds dying after eating the poisoned grain came as a surprise to the researchers.

The real test is going to be if in finding a method that restricts intake of the poison limited to strictly to hogs, there will be NO collateral poisoning of birds (turkey or black vultures, possibly red tail hawks and Cara caras) or coyotes/possums, although if the poison only effected hogs and coyotes that might not be a bad deal.

Nitrous oxide? N2o is poisonous?

Sorry my mistake, Sodium nitrite. Here is an article from San Antonio.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/n...Possible-5579087.php

How many of y'all remember the old Remington Blue Rock and Winchester White Flyer clay targets? In my younger days I shot tens of thousands of them, and stacked hundreds if not thousands of cases of these targets. Prominently displayed on the side of each box was: "Do not throws these targets where hogs feed, the pitch used in manufacturing is toxic to hogs".

Now, I ain't real smart, but do any of the young acronym boys know anything about this?

If it was toxic back then, it still oughta be toxic now, and I never saw any other dead critters on the skeet range..............well, there are a few other stories but I ain't talkin'.................

Seriously, I have always wondered if there should be some research into the pitch toxicity to hogs issue, and if it could be used in some type of hog control?

I remember that, and it might be an option. The problem that has to be addressed is the collateral poisoning of non target species.

As I have already said if the poison only affects feral hogs band coyotes, I do not see the problem. But if turkey or black vultures are killed then the playing field will change.

Well I'll be darned, sodium nitrate eh?
It would be a blessing if this works out, although I sure hope they'll leave at least one 100-pounder for this New Mexican to come and harvest one of these days.

I had read or heard something a while back where research was being conducted on a swine-specific venereal disease that rendered them sterile. I'm thinking - now we're getting somewhere! Then I heard it got squelched by pork producers who are afraid it would get into domestic herds.

Hmmm. Always something. Seems like a vaccine could be produced concurrently - but then folks would object to contaminated food supply. Hmmm. Always something...

This is something I heard about several years ago so don't know the validity, but I do trust the source.

Back in the late 1980's/early 1990's the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association was funding a few students at Texas A&M doing research on finding a biological control method to be used on coyotes.

Cutting to the chase, one young woman actually developed a modified Parvo virus, that once the adult coyotes became infected, it would not harnm them but would kill off all their pups before 6 weeks of age. The funding however was cut because the virus was not coyote specific, it could spread to domestic dogs.

Damn, I want them to send me all the left over happy gas they have.

One thing about it, if they life themselves to death there won't be no collateral damage to anything else.

Darn shame no one has come up with a poison for hogs that only affects hogs and no carrion eating birds/animals.
Delivery of the stuff might be best done in diesel soaked corn.

Something that disrupts the reproductive system would be my preference. I believe this has been accomplished with other species through chromosomal alteration. Undoubtedly need far more research, though.....

Something would have to be better than waiting for them to laugh themselves to death!!!!

Really stupid thing ,they try it here with doves and it was a disaster .

Every rancher on the border knows all you have to do is drop sterile flys on the pigs, it worked on the flys and saved the pigs, so reverse it!

Helecopters work on hogs and coyotes, but costly..and where can you find steriles helecopters..

I better leave town now..

I wouldn't leave town just yet!

Years ago around CO. I heard some were hooking exhaust pipes from their trucks and pumping it down p/dog holes. Sure seems like that made the papers.

Dad used to tell me at times: "the plague is a ranchers best friend when it comes to prairie dogs". That was years before the hog problems got out of hand.

George

The first year I hunted elk up at Collbran in 1992, on the trip up I camped at Pueblo Res. and there was a big "Dog Town" around the lake.

When I went back in '93 there were yellow Plague Warning signs all over the place and in "94 there wqere no more P.Dogs.