Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers

By Paul J. Weber

Associated Press

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Mertzon, Texas —- Millions of wild pigs weighing up to 300 pounds have been tearing up crops, trampling fences and eating just about anything in their path in Texas. But now they had better watch their hairy backs.

A state lawmaker is proposing to allow ordinary Texans with rifles and shotguns to shoot the voracious, tusked animals from helicopters.

For years, ranchers in the Lone Star State have hired professional hunters in choppers to thin the hogs’ fast-multiplying ranks. Now state Rep. Sid Miller of the Fort Worth area wants to bring more firepower to the task by issuing permits to sportsmen.

“I’ve had numerous calls and complaints that someone needs to do something,” Miller said. “We’re losing ground on this problem.”

His bill has not yet been assigned to a committee, and its chances of becoming law are uncertain. But if approved, the program could be the first of its kind in the nation. Some other states, like Alaska, allow aerial hunting, but only to control predators, such as bears and wolves.

Some Texans worry about collateral damage.

“If they’re going to open up to where you can do this and anybody who’s got a helicopter can go off to an old boy’s place and hunt, that’s going to be bad,” said Jay Smith, owner of Smith Helicopters in Cotulla. Some people “may get confused and shoot the rancher’s dog or a calf.”

Miller gave assurances the hunting would be closely regulated, though details on such things as how many hunters would be allowed to take part, and how many hogs they would be permitted to kill, have yet to be worked out.

“You’re not going to have some bubba up there going, ‘Pass me a beer and ammo’ and hunting some hogs,” the legislator said. “We certainly want to do it right.”

Many hunters and landowners will probably leave the carcasses in the field, just as they do now. Wild hogs that are gunned down cannot be sold for meat under U.S. agriculture regulations. (Moreover, wild boar is said by some to be tough and gamey.)

An estimated 2 million wild hogs are causing $52 million a year in crop damage in Texas, according to agricultural experts. Pigs that they are, they eat just about anything, including the carcasses of their own brethren. They trample crops, dig up plants with their snouts and steal animal feed. Entire peanut farms have been stripped.

And the pasture-wrecking porkers are causing trouble well beyond farms. Authorities in Texas are reporting an increase in collisions between hogs and cars, while golf courses and suburbs are increasingly finding turf uprooted by hogs.

The animals are descended from hogs introduced into Texas by Spanish explorers more than 300 years ago. But their numbers began booming in the 1980s.

The big ones have no natural predators. Not even a coyote will tangle with a pig bigger than 20 pounds.

During a recent pass in his helicopter over Mertzon in West Texas, Kyle Lange, a professional hunter who is paid to pick off wild hogs from the air in what some are calling a “pork chopper,” offered a glimpse of the magnitude of the problem.

As his helicopter flew over, several packs of hogs that had been rooting around in the brush or napping in the sun suddenly scattered in all directions, with piglets scampering to keep close to their mothers, the little hairs on their backs blown back by the breeze from the chopper.

“You can kill 300 in a day from up here in the Panhandle and you’ve just slowed them down is all,” Lange said over the whump-whump of his two-seat chopper.

Wildlife experts have tried less brutal methods to control their numbers. But the hogs are smart and have learned to avoid traps, and a birth control pill for female hogs is still in development. Many experts agree aerial hunting works.

Nearly 1,100 permits to kill hogs from the air were issued in Texas last year, up from 201 in 2000. Under Miller’s bill, weekend hunters would be able to get permits too, though they would also have to pay landowners for the right to hunt on their property.

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China: 70 ill from tainted pig organs

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- At least 70 people in one Chinese province have suffered food poisoning in recent days after eating pig organs contaminated by a banned food additive, state-run media reported Monday.

Health officials in the Guangdong province in southeast China said most were treated at hospitals and released, but at least three people remained hospitalized, the China Daily newspaper reported.

The victims complained of stomach aches and diarrhea after eating pig organs bought in local markets since Thursday, China's Xinhua news agency reported. A local health official said initial investigations indicated that the pig organs were contaminated by clenbuterol, an additive that is banned in pig feed in China.

Three people were detained for suspected involvement in raising and selling contaminated pigs, authorities said.

Clenbuterol can prevent pigs from accumulating fat but is harmful to humans and can be fatal. One of the largest food poisoning cases involving clenbuterol happened in Shanghai in September 2006, when 336 people were hospitalized after eating pig meat or organs contaminated with the additive, China Daily said.

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Pigs to be killed to curb ebola

Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. -- PHOTO: AFP

MANILA - THE Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs at a hog farm north of the capital Manila to prevent the spread of the Ebola-Reston virus, health and farm officials said on Monday.

But the government has lifted a quarantine on a second hog farm after tests by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and the Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed no more signs of the disease.

The country has more than 13 million heads of swine and the discovery of Ebola-Reston on two hog farms north of Manila was isolated, the government said.

'There is ongoing viral transmission in Bulacan ... as a precautionary measure, depopulation will be carried out in the Bulacan farm,' Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters, referring to the farm just north of Manila.

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. Mr Duque said 147 human samples have been tested for Ebola, but only six have tested positive. But all six remain healthy, he added.

'Ebola-Reston poses a low risk to human health at this time,' Mr Duque said.

It is the first time the virus has been found outside monkeys and the first time it has been found in pigs. The virus had previously jumped from monkeys to humans but this was the first case of a jump from hogs.

The Ebola-Reston virus was found in the Philippines as early as the late 1980s and 25 people were found infected after contact with sick monkeys. But only one developed flu-like symptoms and later recovered. -- REUTERS

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Slaughter of 100,000 pigs gets under way today

SEAN MacCONNELL, Agriculture Correspondent

THE SLAUGHTER and destruction of the 100,000 pigs at the centre of the pork meat contamination scare will begin today.

Plans are also being finalised for the destruction of the 4,000 cattle which were also fed the same feed, the Department of Agriculture confirmed last night.

The announcement came as investigators attempting to trace the source of the oil at the centre of the pig and cattle dioxin scare confirmed that it came from electricity transformers.

The chemical profile of the contaminant was identified as being waste-transformer oil, according to sources close to the investigation.

This may help the environment protection agencies North and South who are investigating the incident with the Garda and the PSNI to find the culprits responsible for the crisis.

The focus of the investigation is now on how the contaminated oil entered the system and ended up being used to convert out-of-date food for cattle and pig ration at the Millstream recycling plant in Co Carlow.

That company has said it had only ever purchased oil from a legitimate supplier in the Republic. That supplier, which has not been named, has not made any public statement.

A Co Tyrone company which supplied oil to the plant for a limited period has said it is not responsible for the contamination and it has passed an audit by the Northern Ireland Environment Protection Agency.

The recall of beef from the 21 beef farms which were known to have used the contaminated feed, is continuing as plans are being put in place to slaughter and destroy the animals on those farms.

The number of animals is not know but will be considerably fewer than the 9,530 cattle originally identified in the Republic on 52 farms.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland had reported on Thursday last four samples from restricted beef herds were above the allowable limit but posed no threat to public health

All these animals, and the 100,000 pigs which were exposed to the feed, will be removed from the food chain and their bodies rendered and incinerated abroad.

The European Commission announced on Friday it would co-finance a disposal scheme for these pigs and pork in a move which will see it make more than €20 million available.

It said it would pay 50 per cent of the cost of buying the animals blocked on farms and for pigmeat stocks held in slaughter houses or still owned by slaughter houses.

The EU also put into place a scheme for buying up 15,000 tonnes of pigmeat in Northern Ireland, a so-called aids to private storage scheme, similar to that already established in the Republic which will take 30,000 tonnes of pigmeat off the market.

The EU contribution to resolving the pigmeat crisis here now stands at almost €36 million and the Government had already put a €180 million package in place to get the factories reopened and the industry moving again.

The dioxin test results from cattle herds in Northern Ireland exposed to the contaminated feed are expected later this week.

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€125m of pork to be destroyed in biggest food scare since BSE

AN ESTIMATED 100,000 pigs will have to be destroyed because of the pigmeat crisis which has led to the recall of all Irish pork products in Ireland's largest food scare since BSE.

The public have been told to dump or return all pork products which they purchased since September 1st last because of the risk of dioxin contamination.

It is estimated that €125 million worth of food products in home and in export markets - up to 25 countries - will have to be destroyed.

The recall followed the discovery of potentially dangerous dioxins, known as PCBs, in pigmeat. They were initially traced in an un-named meat plant in the Republic. The dioxins were contained in feed supplied from a Co Carlow food recycling plant, it emerged yesterday.

As the Government moved to ease the fears of consumers, investigations were continuing at 10 pig farms and 38 beef farms in the Republic. The contamination is likely to have a severe impact on the €7 billion Irish food industry.

It emerged yesterday contaminated feed from the Co Carlow facility, Millstream Recycling in Clohamon Mills, had also been supplied to nine farms in Northern Ireland which now have been restricted.

The investigation has found contaminated pork with dioxin levels of 80 to 200 times above the safety limits. It is being led by the Departments of Agriculture and Health, and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). The Garda Síochána are also involved.

The dramatic food recall was announced on Saturday night as the investigation into the source of the contamination, understood to be oil, was stepped up after tests at a UK laboratory in York confirmed the presence of dioxins in the pigmeat.

The crisis began, however, last month when a routine sample was taken from the meat plant. Results of further tests from cattle farms will be known later today.

Other examination of Irish products in the Netherlands, France and Belgium prompted the action by the Government in an attempt to protect consumer confidence at home and abroad.

The European Commission has called a meeting of food safety experts from Ireland and other affected EU states tomorrow to co-ordinate a Europe-wide response to the contamination of Irish pork products.

Millstream Recycling has confirmed it has been working with Department of Agriculture officials to identify the source of PCBs found in pig meal used in a number of farms in Ireland. Accepting the need for a recall, Millstream Recycling said it would be carrying out "a full investigation to establish how the company's strict health and safety procedures and the high quality standards could possibly have been breached".

Last night the FSAI repeated its advice to consumers not to eat any pork products. But it said people should not be alarmed or concerned in relation to the potential risks from short-term exposure to dioxins found in pork products.

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer at the Department of Health, said a number of health studies conducted in Belgium since the dioxin scare in 1999 had not found any negative effects on the population. "From the experience in Belgium we don't anticipate any health effects and on that basis we are reassuring people."

Prof James Heffron, a specialist on the biochemistry of detoxification at UCC's biochemical toxicology lab, told The Irish Times, however, the Government in his view needed to do more to reassure the public. Prof Heffron said information on the amount of dioxin found in affected meat should be released in addition to further details on the duration of exposure. "When we have this information we can relate it to World Health Organisation guidelines on acceptable levels of dioxin," he added.

The recall led to almost 2,000 calls to the FSAI helpline yesterday. Queues formed at supermarkets as shoppers returned products for which the Government said they should receive a refund. The National Consumer Agency (NCA) said consumers were entitled to be refunded. NCA chief executive Anne Fitzgerald said: "Under legislation consumers are entitled to repair, replacement or refund of a faulty product. In the case of pork meat or other food products containing pork, consumers are entitled to a refund as a repair or replacement does not apply in this instant.

The Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association called on the Government to provide an emergency compensation package so that retailers and suppliers would not be left out of pocket.

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