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I've read magazines from the US and have noticed you guys have feral pigs in some states, but what other feral animals are you likely to see, say up in a tree stand as you wait for that monster buck? And not only the US, how bout the European countries? Bakes | ||
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| one of us |
I've never seen any, but you may run into some feral dogs. | |||
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one of us |
Bakes, we have nothing like what you are used to. In some areas of the US, primarily to the south or west, feral hogs are common. House cats living feral are common, and some dogs. A few areas of the west have wild horses but shooting them can be a real big no-no. No scrub bulls, donkeys, camels, wild horses or goats. It happens I've been to your nice little town and done some shooting in the area. Hope to do it again soon also. ------------------ | |||
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one of us |
The only ferals here I know about are north american minks. They are farmed for producing furs. Some minks have succeded to escaped, others have been "freed" by animal rights activists (Human feral varmints...). These small critters are making consideral damage on water fowls as mallards, geese and other ducks. Infortunately, they are hard to hunt, as they do most of their destructive work in the darkness at night. Fritz | |||
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| one of us |
I've got ferral cats in my neighborhood and around my dorm and i've seen ferral dogs up where we go hunting...i would hesitate to drop the hammer on them either considering what they do to the already scarce population. | |||
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Moderator |
Wild dogs and cats. What really gives me indigestion is that I bet 99% of these animals are released by owners, as there is really no other way they can occur where I am. I hate to say that they mostly get shot, but when you don't all sorts of bad things happen so you really can't afford not to. | |||
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| <500 AHR> |
Markwhite, As I said in my previous post the populations of feral pets go up durng hard times. I used to live in the country and folks would ditch their pets out in the sticks (were I lived, rural Washington State at that time about an hour - hour half east of Seattle) and eventually they went wild. We "adopted" a St. Bernard bitch that just showed up on the farm one morning. She was a great dog and lived with us for about 10 years as I recall. I personally shot several german shepards, labs, mixed muts, a few hunting dogsog various breeds, and at least one collie that I can remember. The truly sad thing is that all of these animals had to have come from a good home at one time were someone must have cared about them. The even sadder thing (and the reason I have no regrets shooting any of them) is that a little girl was mauled and killed by one about 10 miles from our farm. Even worse she was partially eaten! I do not blame the dogs for this as much as the irresponsible idiots that abandoned them in the first place (probably animal rights activists today). Todd E | ||
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| one of us |
A friend of mine used to be a caretaker on a sheep farm in California -- as he described it all the hippie neighbors let their dogs run wild, and the dogs did what came naturally, forming a pack and devastating the sheep. He loves dogs but after losing many sheep he had to do his job -- so he gave repeated notice to the neighbors, then he and a partner went out in a jeep and started dropping the mutts with .243s. Another guy I know once got permission to hunt on a farm in Calif. -- the farmer told him, "sure you can hunt here as long as you shoot every damn dog you see." He agreed but he really didn't want to do it and hoped he wouldn't see any. Sure enough, a dog walked up to his stand. He agonized over it, looked around for witnesses, didn't see any, thought about letting it pass and denying all knowledge if asked. Eventually he decided a deal was a deal and popped it. On the way out he stopped to thank the rancher, who said, "No problem, but it's a good thing I saw you shoot that dog." | |||
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| <heavy varmint> |
Feral dogs have been a problem where I hunt. Last year my uncle had 4 feral dogs chase a deer by his stand. He passed on the small buck and shot the first dog in the pack instead, he told me that at the shot the first dog went down squalling and the rest of the dogs jumped on it and they fought amungst thenselves until he had shot all 4. | ||
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| <Don G> |
In the late sixties the wife of a family friend shot and killed 17 dogs from a feral pack on their farm near Conroe, Texas. (Conroe was in the sticks back then. Now it's virtually a Houston suburb.) Hubby was at the day job. She took them out from 200 yards as they fed on their freshly killed roping horse. Her name was "Zelda May", and she was quite a woman. Don | ||
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| <Hunter - DownUnder> |
A friends property has been ravaged by a pack of "feral" dogs. They were killing sheep for sport. After a while he figured that the attacks were only happening on the weekends. DOubting that feral dogs operate on 40 hour working week calander he started to work out why. Turns out that one of his neighbours has a hobby farm and comes up on the weekends, bringing his two rotweiler / x dogs. The farmer asked him to keep them on a chain and the guy said that his dogs were always chained up at night. The sheep killings continued until he shot both dogs one Friday night whilst they were running through his lambing ewes and returned the dogs collars to the owner. This is unfortunately a fairly common scenario. Not the dogs fault but it's not good manners to shoot their owners, no matter what their faults  | ||
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| one of us |
Whew! I thought I was the only mean, horrible person shooting ferral cats and dogs. I once heard an interview where this bunny-hugger was going on about how domestic cats are simply "unable to survive in the wild". Four years ago I shot a cat that weighed well over 20 pounds - and there wasn't a farm or house for miles! I heard another interview where a Biologist stated that domestic animals - cats in particular - are responsible for nearly 95% of all extinctions. I would bet that this guy was right on the money. Australia and New Zealand have enormous ferral cat problems. Hawaii has ferral hog problems. Polynesia has lost nearly all of its bird species to cats. And almost everywhere else you look, ferral animals have caused enormous amounts of damage. I keep that in mind when I'm outdoors, and in my neck of the woods, there's not too much of a ferral animal problem. On this issue, there is no debate for me. These animals are not part of the natural ecosystem - so they're blasted if they're encountered. | |||
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| <graff> |
well, Mr. Bakes, you did not ask about south america, but here it goes. Im Brasil, feral hogs and a crossbreed between european hog and domestic fare in south, goats and hogs in northeast, waterbuffalo in center-north. Hunting hogs and goats is more or less like hunting deer. Waterbuffalo is quite a challenge, very nice. This is a very interesting post, because in many parts of the world, that is the only hunting possible. Here, for instance, hunting native animals is forbidden, except in one state. I can not conceive nothing more stupid, but that is how things are... | ||
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| one of us |
quote: There are about 5 cats across the street from my house who are fed nightly by a stereotypical Cat Lady. Does she take them to the vet or do anything else for them? I doubt it. I've tried to talk to her about it but she freezes or runs like a cat herself! The funny thing is there are always piles of feathers around the spots where she feeds them. | |||
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| one of us |
quote: There are about 5 cats across the street from my house who are fed nightly by a stereotypical Cat Lady. Does she take them to the vet or do anything else for them? I doubt it. I've tried to talk to her about it but she freezes or runs like a cat herself! The funny thing is there are always piles of feathers around the spots where she feeds them. ;-) BTW I went on a hunt on a wildlife refuge a couple weekends ago for deer and feral pigs -- I had never seen pig "habitat" before but now that I've seen how destructive they are with their rooting and wallowing, I'm not surprised Fish & Wildlife wants 'em killed! Didn't see any deer or pigs -- apparently the pigs all head for the state line after opening day of this one week hunt. | |||
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| Moderator |
Graff Well you learn something new every day...... I thought Australia had the only huntable waterbuff, and sorry but I didn't even think about South America. As for the US I'm supprised you don't have feral goats all over the place. Our feral population were spread from areas were we had gold rushes. I thought it would be the same for you guys, then again you have more big preditors over there. Bakes | |||
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one of us |
Bakes, goats have the disadvantage of not being "cute" like wild horses, so they get taken care of. We do have other ferals, too, such as nutria (large rodent from South America), and, I think, Auodad sheep in the Mountains of New Mexico? Something like that, anyway. In my native Holland, there isn't enough room for anyone to turn around, so most of the ferals are small. Musk rats come to mind as a terrific pest, there. FWIW, Dutch. | |||
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| <perrydog> |
Goats at one time were feral in colorado...my grand dad talks about hunting them near Salida in the 30's and 40's as a good source of protein for the family. I think they are all gone now in that area. Feral dogs are common in rural alaska. Many would not make it on their own but supplement their diets with whatever they can find in the dump. Some villages regularly shoot "wild" dogs for public safety...both for physical attacks and rabies. I have personally caught a dog in a fox snare ~5 miles from the closest road and the dog had a collar and city tag. I have also seen them 30 miles from the closest town in the winter while I was caribou hunting...they were probably living of carrion associtated with the large caribou herd. I had a professer in college that claimed after man cats were responsible for the most extinctions in the last 200 years. | ||
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| <Sika> |
I think the only truly feral animals we have are dogs, cats, horses, and hogs. We have lots of non-native species like chukar, pheasant, sika deer, oadad sheep, nutria, ect, but I believe a feral animal is a domesticated animal breeding in the wild, am I correct? BTW, I think guinea fowl are now just as common in my area as wild quail, does anybody else notice this in their part of the country, or other countries? So many people released them in their yards to eat the ticks, in fear of lymes disease, they now seem to do just fine on their own. They travel in flocks, are really aggressive, and roost in trees, so the only things I see preying on them are hawks and owls? | ||
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| one of us |
Sika, I've noticed some guinea fowl running around in Pennsylvania too. The funny thing was that some wild turkeys were traveling with the four that I saw. I couldn't figure out where the heck they came from, but I was not too far from civilization. I wonder if these birds can actually survive the winter? | |||
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| <Jeff S> |
In 1987 I was on a IIB Red Stag (Hirsch) hunt of a Stadstforst near Fulda. Was sitting in a very tall Hochsitz dubbed "die Eifel Turm" by the locals. We had been watching a very large Russian Boar for about 1/2 hour when I noticed thru my binos a small furry creature with a ringed tail run across the clear cut. I didn't recall seeing any kind of animal with a ringed tail in my German Jagdschein animal ID classes. So I asked the Jager with me...Was ist Dass? He replied "Dass ist ein Waschbar." Befuddled I sat back and thought about it for a moment...Waschbar? Washing Bear.... OHHHH I get it a RACCOON! When I said the english word for the animal to him his eyes opened wide and a smile lit up his face..."ja ja. Raccoon, das ist richtig!" And I learned that Raccoons have managed to make it to europe via surface ships and have made themselves quite at home. | ||
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one of us |
About 20 years ago, we had a pack of wild dogs running in our area(pets that were dumped). I would see them from time to time but they stayed away so i left them alone. Then, our dog was literally ripped apart. One day i saw this pack take after some of our livestock. Needless to say, the pack lasted about a week after that. This was the toughest hunting i have ever done. I caught a few of them off guard and quickly dispatched them. The others i went looking for. They didn't make it easy for me. I have a neighbor that has horses, he sees a dog in his pasture field and you can be rest assured that it won't come home for supper.... mike ------------------ America, Love it or LEAVE IT! | |||
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