EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

Ok all this talk about shutin down runners has got me to thinkin. About 20 years ago it seem like a larger percentage of the hogs bayed prurdy quick N now days they seem to run alittle harder. So My Question is this is it possible that over the years cathin all the slow dumb Hogs. Which just leaves the Faster Smarter hogs left to produce that we have help to evolve the hog population into a more athletic defensive animal. Just a thought what are yalls thoughts on this!

My thoughts are that too many have been educated...not evolution, that takes thousands of years.

I agree 100%... I know whether to call it evolution or education. But I have noticed that these "smart" hogs produce "smart" offspring that have the same traits on properties i've hunted for several years.

I was talking to an old timer Sunday night and was saying that hogs were #5 and dogs were #10 on some list of smart animals??? I guess the more pressure we put on them, the better they will learn to survive.

Think about this, as many people hog hunting these days, by every method you can think of... we're not even putting a dent in them.

JMO Here we go, look at how things were done in the frontier days, the hogs were hearded, corraled, marked, cut and cut loose til the fall not being messed with at all through summer. Then they were gathered up again and drove to market and slaughter to get through the winter and survive on meat. They used hearding dogs like the Blackmouth cur, collie etc, Im sure some of the dogs were tough as nails and rough as they come but they hearded and drove the hogs just like a good cow dog. Now today we have Catch dogs and rough as hell so called Bay dogs that do nothing but pressure the hogs into running and educating them. Hogs are not stupid animals, Bay a group send a catch dog and let a pig see what happens they are going to learn from that experience and try not to let it happen to them. My question is for these running hogs would they run as bad if you got on them with 1 and only 1 loose baying dog? I think that they wouldnt. Now send the same hog 3,4,5,6 rough dogs what is he going to do? If I was him Im gonna try everything I could to get the heck out of dodge. This is just my opinion it may not be right but its what I believe.

1 dog does work well a lot of times and I tell everyone to try it that complains about runners. But, it doesn't always work. There are places where you get one or two barks and the race is on. The hogs these days aren't the same as the old timers used to free range. I've noticed on several places over the years the hogs are getting more and more of the Russian influence in them.

Even on one loose baying dog, when you have a good bay, it's hell getting a bulldog to it.

This type of "evolution" does not take thousands of years, look at the very dogs we use to work pigs, it didn't take thousands of years to go from dogs to miniature dogs, just several generations. Same with hogs except instead of humans contrling the breeding, we've left only the fastest to breed

NATURAL SELECTION !!!

Theres no way it's due to the "fast" hogs being left in the gene pool. First off, they are prolific breeders, which is why we cant put a dent in them. Second off, maybe it's that there are more POOR QUALITY dogs out there now than there was 10 years ago, making the "running" problem seem bigger than it is?

T-Bob-   From everything I've learned in my college career which just happens to have a lot to do with animals evolving and adapting, we wouldnt see a difference in just 5-10 years. 

well from everything i learned in my college career girls with daddy issues will do silly things for beads ;D and i didnt say 5-10 years

theres no way you can tell me you have knowledge of eugenics AND you guarentee faster pigs dont produce faster piglets

if we're running from a bear you aint gotta be faster than the bear, just faster than me.

  IMO, I think we are the ones who educated them. I have land where there are very few doggers and the hog bay easier. The land we hunt and others hunt close to we have alot more trouble stopping them. No substitute for good dogs.

Yes, there are a lot of piss poor dogs running around these days.

But, people with DOGS are having the same problems more and more. When I say dogs, I mean dogs that will make most of us load ours up and go home. :o

Let's face it, hogs are smart and will learn to adapt and survive.

I would think they learn to adapt more than inheriting traits from hogs that run.

I know they are evolving can say that for a fact hogs are getting leggier and leggier around here now yes they are smarter also but think that has to do some with momma teaching baby.  If she is nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof 9 times out of 10 the pigglets will be too and we catch the tenth easy lol.

HOGs CAN EVOLVE IN A VERY SHORT TIME. IN 15 YRS OF INTENSIVE BREEDING & GOOD SELECTIONS WE HAVE DRAMATICALLY IMPROVED THE Trigg & Walker coyote hounds. look at how the  pitbull was developed in less than 100 yrs. You can go on and on with horses & cattle. the thing to remember is that hogs are prolific breeders , probably the smartest animals on a farm and are full grown in about 6 months. if the slow dumb ones are eliminated the gene pool with evolve very fast.

Olympic track star #1 knocks up olympic track star #2 after winning gold medals in our last olympics

Aggie offensive lineman knocks up aggie softball team 1st basewoman

Give the offspring time to grow up and tell me which one is faster.

If we are killing a few more slow hogs than fast hogs, there is a slight chance that the faster hogs are breeding the faster hogs.  I'm no genetics professor, but surely that has something to do with macroevolution.  I 100% agree that there are sorrier dogs hunting today than there were even a few years ago.  I also agree that we educate hogs to run with sorry dogs.  I just think that evolution might have a small something to do with it too.

I guess its a coincidence that when I go with my young dogs, getting smoked happens from time to time. When taking my older dogs, I can count on one hand how many times Ive been outrun in the past few years, no bs, I wouldnt post that it sounds to cocky, unless it were true.  What that tells me is if I didnt have my older, better, smarter dogs, id be getting outrun, and then i might believe the hogs are getting faster and smarter.  

And lets say that is the case...the hogs are getting faster and dog smart.  We should be breeding better dogs instead of complaining about getting outrun, right? If hogs and adapt and change that much then dogs can do the same...  

Another thing to think about. The sheer amount of hogs in Texas....we havent caught all the slow ones, not by a long shot.  The chances of two hogs even in the top 25% of the fastest hogs getting together and breeding would be slim I would think due to population size, by no means enough to account for this widespread phenomenon of super runners. Sorry guys, I just dont buy into this idea of faster hogs.

Im with you we just dont get outran that often. We have actually seen the number of hogs with alot of domestic in them on the rise. That could have some to do with hogs around here still baying pretty good. Not only that but we get bigger groups bayed these days and I can see how the hogs you dont get caught out of that group could want to run when they hear or smell a dog. I also think overhunting has some to do with it. We try to not over hunt our places and that could help with hogs baying better.

Michael, Michael, Michael... I heard about the places you hunt. ;)

Make a road trip down here when you get a chance and show some of the worst runners i've ever encountered since I started.

Hey, i just thought of something. i couldnt track the offspring, but I could bay my tagged sows over and over again, to see if they get dog smart and run....it would be hard to deny that if i could get the data together...

No, you heard about ONE place I hunt Mike   ;D  These hogs around the house get dogged A LOT, as bad as anywhere. They may run, but they dont outrun.  Ive been to east tx, south tx, and Ok. Surely I would run across some of these super runners along the way?

I also think we are dealing with way different hogs than in the old days.Now,I aint saying my dogs are better.But I would love to see someone come gather these hogs,and drive them to a pen.Maybe I'm way wrong.But I dont see it happening.  :-X

These hogs now days havent ever been to a pen. Kind of like cattle that are used to being penned in the same place and are horse/dog broke vs cows that havent ever even seen a horse/dog or pen I guess.

I HAV A FEW PLACES THAT MIGHT SUPRISE YOU THESE HOGS UP HERE IN THE HILLS ARE BUILT TO RUN AND THEY RUN LIKE A HELL  ;)

They are sorta wild nowadays compared to yesteryear.Maybe? I dont know.You sure would have a time trying to pen em. ;)

Another story that relates to this. This was told to me by an old time hog hunter that has been hunting longer than most on here have been living... about 8 years ago. The hogs they hunted around here 15 years previous to that time, could be bayed in large groups and worked... all day everyday. Then they brought in a few loads of heavily "russian" influenced hogs from South Texas. Within a few years, all the good hogs were gone and nothing was left but these runners... evolution, adaptation, genetics???

I even heard a similar story just this past year from a fella with a ranch up in Oklahoma. ;)

Im not going to get into a pissing match about whose hogs run further. A hog is a hog.  I hunt where theres a ton of pressure and where there is almost none...some run some dont. Simple.    8)

I am pretty lucky to live in a part of the country that aint dogged heavy.So I am in no way saying these run more than others.Kinda like you said,they aint never seen a pen.And sure aint dog broke.All I'm saying is they are a different animal than what they were 50 years ago.My problem is we dont have enough hogs. ;D

   Why are the hogs more educated now and running more than they were 15yrs ago? Hunting pressure? Style of the dogs? More people hunting them? who knows some run some dont, some fight some dont.
  I can see were this is going to end up again, a russian blood arguement. This topic needs some ole timers to chime in and give there opinion on the subject.

Yes there getting smarter. Alot of people on here talk about catching those running hogs. You get your butt and nuts chewed on and you will learn fast to. Few weeks back when the bees got after us it was every body for them self. You didn't have to be getting stung, i was letting every body know they didn't want to be. 7 times on the head and 3 times on the back running like a little girl. Left the tiger tide to a tree getting his a$$ tore up to.

 A thought
 someone said  evolution in hog takes 1000's of years,, I am going to have to make a point think about how domesticated hogs have changed in the last 30 years
       my .02
 Dexter

seems like to me as fast as the breeding cycle is for hogs it could change fairly quick....It doesn't take 50yr's to come up with a dog line thats more catchy or leggy .... cross your pit and curr dog ..line breed a few times and you'll have a leggy dog with a big head and jaws...it may not be a jam up dog and dumb as a brick but they will be different.....JMO  Danny Ward

  I dont think that is even in the same class. We influrenced the breeding of the domesticated hog for what we wanted, the animal didnt do it on its own.

I know where I'm at I have caught hogs that are short and thick, and some that look like a grey hound. I've often wondered how hogs can be so different in the same area. That being said, I have only run into one hog that I know has run and I haven't seen him yet. I've bayed him three times and he does the same thing every time. He will bay for one or two dogs that don't put too much pressure on him but when he sees the cd coming he breaks and RUNS. I figure that he has been dogged before and if he hasn't he is well educated now!lol That's just my experience, I'm not saying I have it figured out, I'm just all ears listening to ya'll! I have been thinking of turning a good domestic boar or two loose on my place to improve the quality of the hogs around here and add some color to them.

Years ago I had a big place leased in west Texas for bird hunting. It was a good place and was in shinnery country. We always had birds that would run but not that bad. I killed all the birds that would hold and the runners were the ones left. In a period of 10 years or less the birds on that place were bad to run. Also they learned to get up wild way ahead of the dog.

We had one covey we named "the smart covey" that we actually had to develop plans on how we were going to get them pointed. A few of them got killed but not that many because they were just too smart. Also I had better dogs as time went along.

A hog is a real smart animal and it does not take them that long to figure out how the deal works. One time we caught a big hog and put it in a bay pen. We had a pen for the hogs and a chute with gillotene gates leading to the bay pen. This hog went through the chute 1 time before he went to the bay pen. When he got tired of the dogs he ran right back to the gate he came out of and flipped it up with his snout. Then he proceeded to flip up every gate until he got back with the rest of the hogs.

Are you going to try and tell me that a hog that smart is not going to figure out that he needs to "get out of Dodge" when he hears man and dogs coming.

I do think most dogs these days lack the bottom to stick with a hog. which leaves the question are they getting out run or just quiting which it a different subject all together. That being said I have been fortunate to own and hunt behind some nice dogs that come up with pork consistantly it just seems like it takes them longer to get them bayed. in my mind if a dog sticks with a hog long enough the hog will stop and bay. I am not rule'n out the education they are gettin from being run and not caught. Which could result in the if I run fast enough for long enough I can shake em. What I was refering to in evolving was the fact that the hogs I have caught in the past few years do seem to have more leg under them and are built to run.

http://www.easttexashogdoggers.com/forum/index.php?topic=4829.0

This is an old thread that covers the same subject.

My post from over a year ago.

Great point Wmwendler .
I dont even know most of the hog hunters in my area these days and I see them everywhere!

Im putting these hogs in the same category with coyotes and whitetail deer myself. I agree with Wmwendler that they are adapting through learned behavior mostly and they are dang good at it! Same as coyote and deer.
But there is something else thats happening out there in the woods and Mike hits on it with his question " You notice the legs on some of these hogs these days?".
Thats how these hogs are evolving!
In the wild its always been survival of the fittest and these hogs are simply adapting and evolving like other species according to habitat and predator base. More specifically, us hog hunters.
 
My point is simple. With increased hunting pressure from all of the "pro hog hunters"  these hogs are learning that if they run fast and fare enough they can make a get a way! The ones that make that get a way (usually the more leggy ones) are the ones that continue to reproduce making more leggy little running sob's.
Its not happening over night but if man can bread a dachshund with 3 inch legs to work in badger hole then why cant mother nature bread a leggy hog to run like a race horse enabling it to get away from its predators given a little time.
Natures way of selective breading to accommodate a hogs predator base. Hog hunters!
Just my theory but it makes since to me.

Mike, I agree that its gonna get worse but we will always be able to catch them with dogs. Us predators adapt and evolve with our quarry also.

X2.....

Check out the running gear on this hog. He caught on the same river bottom that Matt_Aggie's Grandpa hunted hogs in 50 years ago.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/DEERHUNTER280/IM000629.jpg)

mike we are not geting in a pissin match on who's hogs legs are longer ;D

Good thing because that looks like the same hog!! ;D

ultimatly its up to the dogs to stop , turn or rip the sack off the hogs .if they keep running maybe just maybe we should be assessing the dog s not the hogs !!!jmo

I disagree... sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I've seen dogs grab the ass end and spin the hog, but i've seen just as many grab, the hog catch another gear and leave that dog in the dust.

Oh yes we are! ;D

You may have everyone beat in the tooth department, but know where there's some that will give those rock hoppers a run for their money in the bottom end. :o

ha ha you better get them dogs legged up now for when you com get your axis meat u just thought them hogs run at the shine oak im takin you to run one of them canyon ridge runners :o ;D

My tender-footed dogs are staying at the house... they're scared of rocks. ;D

thats what i was afraid of  ;D

only the strong survive O0

My vote is that it has to do with both, education and evolution. The cream rises to the top. The better the hog dogs the faster and smarter the hogs. Evolution happens very quickly according to life circumstances. If the hogs can't evolve fast enough they would become extinct. Fortunately for the hog doggers this is not the case.

Like it was mentioned earlier, the hogs are looking more and more like russian hogs. We see more small shoats that are born striped.

I noticed back in the 1980's and 90's that some of the wild hogs that looked more like barnyard hogs tended to stop and fight more ofter than the russian types. Well the fighters would get caught more often than not.

We had two different litters of wild pigs and one set was striped and the others were solid black or red. We put them in a training pen for the young pups to train with. The striped pigs would rather run than fight and the pups would have to trail them up through the thick weeds. The barn yard type didn't run as far and would stop to fight and they would get stretched out pretty quick by the pups.


A good breeder can take ten pups and cull down to four good pups and then breed these pups and select the very best from these without any comprimise, and, over three or 4 generations the percentage of culls in a litter will have declined and will continue to decline but the curve will eventually start to plane out. Same principle with the wild hogs except we don't have to feed or take care of them. The culls are the ones that get caught.

Ha ha... they'll be there. >:D

Reuben, I agree 100%.

I've been noticing the same thing over the years on several places I hunt.

10-4 I knew that by reading your previous posts... :)

Thats about the way I feel about it myself!

From what I have noticed spotted, red, n black hogs with a little white in them being a foot or blaze in there face whatever the markin might be usually stop n fight prudy quick around here and are usually thicker built hog and I mostly notice them on places that havent had much hunting pressure. The places that have had alot of hunting pressure over the years the hogs are mostly black or black with blonde tips long legged n lean.

    Here is something I've been wondering, if the hogs are getting faster why not breed a few feral sows to a domestic boar. Turn them loose and let them raise in the wild. Think that would change the population alittle?

Well thats not apples to apples because hogs are not selective about what they breed to. Sure, dogs can change quick when we breed two dogs together with traits we want, and then continue to do so for generations.  Lets just say for funs sake that two of these fast leggy hogs breed. Then lets say for funs sake that the pigs did get the speed from the parents, which isnt a sure thing.  What then are the chances of those pigs breeding back to another fast hog?? Not too good for any of those things to happen when you figure the size of the hog population.

It is all adaptation.

You catch some of the worst running shoats you ever seen. Bred from pure runners that the parents cannot stop from a dog. Put them on 5,000 ranch that is never hunted for 5 years. You go in there after 5 years and you can bet they wont know a dog wont run. Hunt them year round for 5 years and they will run like H&ll.

Just like subdivision deer. The will eat peoples grass and garden and you can walk right up to them. Compare them to deer hunted all year round and will run at a whiff of a human.

They both are deer one is not smarter or faster than the other. They adapt to pressure to survive.

It takes several hundred generations to evolve......It takes one generation to "adapt".

People................evolution (natural selection) does not happen in a couple decades.  It takes thousands of years.  When it comes to changes in the hog population that we have seen in our lifetimes, you simply cannot call it evolution.  The changes could be due to selection, but not natural selection.   Selective breeding can make changes in a matter of years but it is different than evolution.

In my opinion runners can be explained mostly by education.  Over hunt a place and hogs get educated fast.  Rest a place and the educated hogs die off and its back to square one.  But who wants to blame them selves for the hogs becoming runners? ;)  It's human nature to find blame something other than ourselves for a problem.

Hogs may be trending more toward "russian" characteristics in some areas but then again in some areas they are not.  Not to mention we killed "russian" looking hogs 17-18 years ago when I was a kid.  Those genetics have been there for years and years its just a matter of when they will pop up.  The genetic base for feral hogs is very large (From pot bellies, to countless domestic breeds to "Russian" hogs) so its not hard get changes in type in a relatively short period of time  But its not evolution.

Waylon

Hogs are super smart. They adapt quickly to hunting pressure. If you hunt a spot every day for several weeks the hogs will have learned to run at the sound of the four wheeler firing up or the dogs barking with excitement. THAT IS CALLED ADAPTING.

Let's say we have 10 wild hogs and 8 look domestic and 2 look leggy russian types. The ratio is 80 percent domestic looking hogs and 20 percent russian looking hogs. We hunt this spot for a year and we catch 5 hogs and all were the domestic looking ones. Not only did they look domestic but the ones that got caught had lower IQ's. The three domestic looking hogs that got away were smart enough to run as soon as they heard the 4 wheelers and dogs. They were smart enough to keep running far enough and didn't stop until they were past the point of where the dogs usually gave up the track before they stopped.

Now the ratio is 40% russian and 60% domestic with a higher IQ. Every time this process repeats itself the percentage keeps increasing for russian type and decreasing for domestic types. THIS IS CALLED EVOLUTION... :)
It will happen fast enough but sometimes the domestics will breed with the domestics but as the ratio starts to increase on the Russian side the likelyhood of this happening keeps deminishing because of the lower numbers of domestic looking pigs. Especially since the hogs are still being dogged...

These hogs breed and now you have litters that have both types of piglets and this keeps repeating itself. The results are that each generation keeps breeding a higher percentage of smarter and faster hogs that would rather run than fight, but when cornered are very fierce. The slower hogs and the hogs with lower IQ's keep getting caught. The cream continues to rise to the top...

I want to throw in an example from a whole other point of view...On the Galapagos Islands there is birds referred to as Darwins Finches...To make a long story short the birds all originated from the same ancestor and have evolved into different species as an adaptive response to changing foodsources...The only reason I bring this up is because I ran across this and wanted to share this about evolution...The finches' amazing story of survival has been documented by Peter and Rosemary Grant, two biologists that have meticulously measured every size and beak length of every finch on the island. They have seen that in the course of ONE SEASON, the average beak length can change drastically.

I believe pigs can and will adapt very quickly...Evolution doesn't have to take thousands of years to take place...Just another example of what Reuben was saying, and unlike the pig story, this is documented with science so if birds can do it, I'm sure pigs can to.

Evolution ? - Have the hogs in the swamps grown webbed hooves for swimming ?
Education? -Do the hogs run quicker and longer after hunting pressure?
Natural selection? - Do the slow dumb hogs get caught first?

Yes but they all got gator ate..  :)
They do run longer..
Yes , if there were no slow dumb ones I'd never catch one..  ;)

 Im not sure if its evolution or education but the place where we hunt the hogs are more skiddish than the deer are. Even when sitting in a stand and deer hunting, if a hog steps out 300 yards away and winds you it is gone! They throw them heads up and then take off like their tails are on fire. But since it is a farm, they are constantly shot at by farmers and very heavily dogged. They have been shot at way more than they have been dogged up until a few years ago. Its not just doggers that they run from, its the scent of humans.

Its just like any other culling program why do they do it ?  Only one anwser to get better.  I would say this, this hog  pop is under some pretty heavy stricked culling every hour of every day so what will that leave you it leaves you the best being bred to the best which give you superior hogs the same with dog and horses are any animal breeding program.

I have said this for a long time now and I do believe this is a big part of the anwser of what is going on.
One place were we hunt had been hunted / owned  by one man and his dad before him owned / hunted some 75 years before him only his dad and him and a few of his buddys would hunt there, This man  always said there was three four boar hogs out there that dogs could not catch well  he died his kids took it over they will not let anyone hunt that place but let me tell you if you get close to that place the hogs get faster, they get smarter,  they get meaner , they get badder and they are some hard hogs to handle  thats a fact!

Its just natural this happens, a man culls deer look what happens!

What man don't cull who culls the rest?

Mother Nature and she has no  sympathey!

 Cull the weak whats left only the strong!

They all got gator ate !!!!    That's funny right there :) lol

I believe it! The difference is seen in the places that get hunted and not managed. I have had places that I managed the hogs on and I have places that just get hunted! The difference in how the hogs act can be dramatic!

The hogs got managed in the old days for the most part. Now a days they mostly get hunted………Only the strong, fast, smart survive………to breed again. What kind of offspring do you think stronger, faster, smarter hogs produce anyway?

Nature has her own way of selective breeding. Heavily hunted areas can amplify the breeding program bigtime from what I have seen.

There are good arguments on both sides and some folks see it as making excuses for your dogs. That may be the case for some but I can only speak for myself. I cull pretty hard and don’t make any excuses for my dogs at all.

I think some of you guys should take up some of these offers that people are extending to you to see how the hogs run on some of the properties they hunt! Just be prepared to do one of  a few things after the hunt.
•   Make excuses for your dogs
•   Cull your dogs when they fail to put an end to that runner.
•   Or just give the hogs credit for being a running SOB's!


I guess you can always blame it on someone else’s “sub par” dogs for educating the hogs and making runners out of them!  rolleyes

This debate will never end. Fine by me! ;D

I think it is both evolution and education... My uncle once told me it only takes a completely demestic pig two generations in the wild to become completely ferrell. Since I am currently a college boy and learning how to do research I looked it up  ;D

{Once domestic pigs are turned loose in the wild, they eventually revert to their wild instincts and genes as they reproduce. Some grow tusks and wiry hair, Ladner and Umscheid said.

"It only takes one or two generations, and then they revert to more of a wild appearance," Ladner said.}

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/mar/17/wild_pigs_gunned_down_clinton/

This is evolution is it not?


p.s. dont count me off for spellin, they aint taught us that yet  ;D

 I think it's a little of both and I agree with Ninja this could never stop,after goin back and reading it all again this was a interesting post with a lot good comments ...;D.... I'm glad that their faster,smarter,evolved or educated...what or which ever it is...because if they were'nt hunters would be decreasing the population and the state would put a season on them...  then my uneducated country a$$ and my dogs would have to wait each year to go chase the runners  :D ;D :o .... D.W.

I blame ninja's dogs.. Once word got out the swine knew they better run and never stop.. LOL..

Chain I think that is my whole problem! lol

What I really need is some dogs like ole Patrick! I hear those big nasty, saber toothed boars you have been catching all year try to run in and surrender when they see you drive up with that dog in the truck!
You just can train that in a dog people!!! LOL

 :laugh:

Don't know why you would want a bunch of crippled dogs..  ;)

Its not really true natural selection when you add the human factor though... but even still as much and often as pigs reproduce would speed up the general change in the population, but i think the bigger reason in the change in pigs runnin is not that they run faster but they run sooner.  Pigs are smart you see ole sam get his butt chewed on by a big bull dog so you run when you see a dog, then larry gets caught so you run when you smell a dog, then when jimmy gets caught you become really skidish and avoid human/dogs as much as possible... that doesnt require generations and generations, that requires a couple of months.  Little pigs follow big pigs, so they learn really soon run or die.  Now that there is more hunters then before, more dogs in the woods, then the greater the hunting pressure and the more pigs are willing to run and move.  Natural selection takes years to change the physical appearance, and genetical make up of an animal, but learning how to survive is different it only takes a couple encounters. 

Evolution can take a thousand years or 10 years. It depends more on what the pressure is or if it is something that has outlived it's use or whatever. If the animal can not adapt to the change whether it is predation from man or beast, it will become extinct. To me it is the same whether the animal is dying off due to disease, predation or an interuption in the food chain which causes starvation, the animal must adapt or become extinct. In most cases there will be a certain percentage that will survive this attack and then those animals will have a resistance to this threat and will reproduce a higher percentage of animals with the resistance to this so called threat. The percentages will continue to get higher after each generation.

ADAPTATION AND EVOLUTION GO HAND IN HAND... ???

AGREED!!! more people are doggin=more pigs being dogged=more pigs being eduacated. this is why most of us run silent dogs. in my "opinion" it is as simple as that.

I have been hunting for years with a guy that was born and raised down by Franklin, Tx.. He has been hunting hogs all his life. I asked him about hogs changing and he said that there was no doubt about it.

What he said was there is a ranch down there named Camp Coole (sp) and that guy imported some Russian hogs many years ago. They go loose and bred with the hogs that had been there for years. This changed the hogs.

According to this guy about ever 10 years of so bruceilosis would hit the hogs and they would dang near die out. Then they would come back in a few years. He said that when the Russian hogs started interbreeding things changed. The deal about the Russian blood is this.

1. They live about twice as long.
2. They are more disease resistant.
3. They have larger litters of pigs.
4. They have a smaller birthweight.

Judging from the hog population I think he is right.