Only the strong Survive

[chainrated]

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.. 

[djhogdogger]

 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.

[TexasHogDogs]

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!

[DangerZone]

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

[BarrNinja]

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!

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! 

This debate will never end. Fine by me!

[TColt]

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

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  

{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  

[DangerZone]

 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 ....... 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.W.

[chainrated]

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

[BarrNinja]

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

[chainrated]

 

[chainrated]

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!

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

[zachW]

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. 

[Reuben]

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...

[catch-n-tie]

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. 

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.

[Hog Dog Mike]

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.