Pig Man Helicopter Episode

Helicopter shoots like that may seem horrible to those that don't have the hog numbers like most areas have in Texas, but it's a part of the management program for most large ranchs in Texas.
They do them on the ranch I hunt 2 - 3 times every year in the early spring. There is a game biologist along on every flight keeping count of the animals, both deer and hogs, that are seen. This year, on 3 shoots, they got around 500 hogs and that is a low number due to the bad weather they had on 2 of the shoots. Low rain and clouds prevented them from killing more.
And 500 may seem like a lot of hogs, but the biologist will tell you, it barely made a dent in the population.
Someone mentioned "you wouldn't shoot deer like this and they eat crops." That is true. But deer just eat crops and certainly don't multiply like a hog can, not to mention the damage a group of hogs can do the property.
The ranch I hunt is all South Texas brush, not a crop or hay field on it. It is a true, working cattle ranch, cowboys on horseback and all. But the hogs rooted up the open areas so bad last year, they destroyed what little native grasses there were for the cattle to eat, not to mention the damage they did to the roads all across the ranch. In most places it looks like a mortar attack occurred. Roads so rough and rooted up a truck can't navigate it without jarring your guts out and it takes another hired hand to drive a dozer to repair the damage. And when your lively hood depends on healthy cattle, hogs are nothing more than a 200 lb cockroach. Do people cry over the dead cockroaches when there is an infestation and the exterminator comes and kills hundreds in a few minutes?
We are allowed to shoot from helicopters because they have infested south Texas and no one in this area feels any remorse over the dead hogs, trust me. People want them dead, not tied, not sold, DEAD. And they sure as heck don't care how they die or what happens to them after they are dead. I have 3 rules to live by when hunting on the ranch;
1. Don't leave a carcass in the road , 2. Drag their carcass from the water if killed in a pond or stream, and 3. KILL every hog that I catch.
I grew up with the same mantra all hunters grow up with, "If you kill it, you eat it!" Well, that was before I moved to South Texas and it's hog population. Most hogs are shot on sight around here, by just about anyone that carries a gun and has time to stop and get a decent sight picture. Not a good sight picture, just a decent sight picture.
The old saying, "The only good snake is a dead snake" has been changed, around here it's "The only good hog is a dead hog!"
You don't have to like it, but it is what it is.
I just wish we could shoot gators in the same fashion. Stinkin' things are just about as thick as the hogs around here and I've never lost a dog to hog, but dang sure have to a gator.