County OKs meaty contract to trap, process feral hogs

The Houston Chronicle posted this on Wednesday April 23, 2014.

After this article, I e-mailed Kiah Collier the author of this article, telling him our experience with the hogs here at Willow Fork.

 Locally sourced pork may be on the menu for needy Houston-area families as Harris County Precinct 3 launches its most ambitious effort to eradicate feral hogs damaging parkland and neighborhoods around the barker and Addicks reservoirs.
 Within a month, precinct employees hope to begin trapping and transporting the wild pigs to a meat processing facility in Brookshire, where they will be butchered, frozen and distributed to area food banks.
 Commissioner Court on Tuesday approved a one-year contract $217,600.00 contract with J&J Packing Co. that begins May 1. Commissioner Court also OK'd the purchase of metal panels to complete four traps to be erected near the reservoir's in west Harris County.
 The approvals were the final steps needed in Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack's longstanding plan to eliminate, or at least sharply reduce, a prolific hog population in George Bush and Commissioner Bill Archer parks, home of the two reservoir's.
 "This is the beginning of the Harris County hog program in earnest," Radack declared. "As meat prices go up, we'll be giving it away."
 The commissioner for years has been looking for a way to curb the destructive beasts that have proliferated in his precinct, Texas and most other states, according to government wildlife agencies.
 In 2009, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers vetoed another Radack plan to hire bow hunters to shoot feral hogs, saying the impact would be minimal and would not outweigh the risk to the public.

Getting rid of the past
  Radack said the rapidly multiplying pigs, have been a problem in his precinct for almost a decade, venturing into neighborhoods bordering the reservoirs to look for food, rooting up yards and damaging sports fields (failed to mention the golf course).
 Radack said trapping them and donating the meat to the hungry is a charitable solution to a pesky problem that he hopes will serve as a model for other communities.
 The question is: "Are we going to be able to make a dent and, yes I think we will," he said.
 For nearly a decade, off duty county workers and hired contractors have trapped several hundred hogs a year in the area. The current plan began to come together early last year when the precinct won a $630,000 Federal Coastal Impact Assistance Program grant to bankroll a study assessing whether hog removal improves water quality, as well as pay for four metal traps and the slaughter and processing of 2,500 pigs. "It'll will be an ongoing and continuing exercise until we get every pig in that area," said Mike McMahan, Radack special activities coordinator.
 The plan is to trap the varmints in four, 4-acres fenced structures - two in each park - where they can survive for up to several weeks, having grass, water, and room to move around. The larger traps will be more effective than the smaller ones employees have been using, McMahan said, because the pigs do not realize they are in a trap and less likely to panic and warn others. "Pigs become very aware of those situations very quickly," McMahan said. "Pigs are very smart animals."

Huge win' for charity
 Radack's office already has an agreement with the Houston Food bank to receive and distribute the meat. The agency's public policy manager, Pamela Berger, described the partnership as a "huge win for us." "From our perspective, this is kind of meat everybody wants; it's locally sourced, it's wild, it's been subject to practices that some people are now finding objectionable, and it's USDA-approved," she said. "I mean, that's the magic because, of course, we would never distribute product that has not been appropriately certified." The meat processor the county will use, J&J, is one of only a few in the state that accepts  feral hogs that has a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector.
 The plan has its skeptics. Brian Mesenbrink, a wildlife disease biologist with the Texas Offices of Wildlife Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture branch designated to address human-wildlife conflicts, said the agency is "not against any legal method when it comes to controlling the feral hogs," but said that the trap-and-process concept - "tried in small little operations here and there" - has proved short-lived in other places, mainly because of the cost. "It's actually very expensive," he said, noting that "you don't get to pick which ones go to market."

The 'disease aspect'
 He also warned of the "disease aspect" of such an operation, noting that feral hogs "carry quite a few" and even federal inspectors do not examine every piece of meat. "It's like Russian roulette," he said. "It's great publicity while it works, but the minute something goes wrong, the minute somebody gets sick, there's going to be all hell to pay. No one thinks about that going into it. They just see the fuzzy and warm side of it."
 Radack dismissed the disease concern, noting that hunting and eating feral hog is far from uncommon. As for the financial viability of the program, he believes the precint will be able to secure additional grant money to contnue it.

Will meet safety rules
 If not, he said, people likely will "donate to the cause" once they see the effectiveness of the program, which he noted has been approved by the Corps of Engineers.
 McMahan said the agency had to sign off on the areas where the traps will be set up to ensure they do not disturb beneficial, native plants species. "Our evaluation found that this program met our requirements and may have a positive impact on the resevoirs with regards to water quality," said Isidro Reyna, a spokesman for the Corps Galveston District. "The Corps will maintain oversight throughout the duration of the program."
 The Corps had been developing another program with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to form a new policy on managing hog populations in the resevoirs and elsewhere. Reyna said that has been "set aside" so that it can "evaluate the successs of the program wth Harris County."

Let's wish them the best!!!