Hunting in many states is VERY liberal with regards to hogs, especially on private land. And yet, the population has tripled in the US since the 80s and are now found in twice as many states.
Recreational hunting can't get it done. Pigs cause $500M+ in crop damage yearly in Texas alone. If hunting was so effective you'd think farmers would have caught on by now??
The issue is not "will hunting lead to dead pigs?", the issue is "will hunting have a net benefit on the problem?" and there is a lot of work that has been done that shows the answer to that is likely no, especially if you don't want the problem to spread.
I can grant your points in regards to a boar population that has already reached a certain population level - once they reach a certain level, hunting is simply insufficient.
But logic demands that hunting can absolutely be more effective with a smaller or nascent population.
I mean, just game it out: if the very first wild boar to enter ontario is shot by a hunter on day 2, hunting will have absolutely solved the wild boar problem.
If we had a population of 2, hunters could easily kill both of them, and then the problem would be solved.
If the population was 3, then of course hunters could still kill the entire population, even with canadian magazine limits.
I could continue counting like that, but i'm sure you get the idea, right?
Now, in texas where the boar population is 2.6 million, obviously hunting is insufficient to resolve the problem.
So somewhere between 3 and 2.6 million is a line, before which hunting can be an effective solution, after which it is not.
Since ontario is surely on this side of that line, it makes sense to me that hunting should be used at this point so that it may be an effective solution while it still has the capacity to be so.
For that matter, even if we had passed the point where hunting along would be capable of resolving the problem, to my mind that simply means that additional population control measures should be added to the arsenal to supplement hunting.
The idea though that, even in that situation, hunting would contribute to the problem rather than the solution simply defies sense. The problem is excessive boar. The solution is killing boar. Hunting, i.e. the killing of boar, is therefore by definition part of the solution, even if it is an insufficient part. To argue otherwise would be to say that squirting water on something is not part of the solution to the problem of them being too dry: even if your squirt gun is small and insufficient, they are still necessarily becoming less dry with every squirt you make.
(Gosh, worst analogy yet).
I have heard the various arguments put forth by experts - about boars adapting and spreading in response to hunting - and frankly i'm just not buying it. They sound like the kind of arguments some sheltered urbanite would come up with sitting there thinking in their office. That's not the kind of argument that comes from real experience. In real experience, every dead boar is absolutely one less boar that's a problem.
I suspect, as do many others, that these expert arguments about how hunting is supposedly counter productive come from such people and reflects their already existing anti-hunting bias. Show me passionate and experienced hunters who make the same argument, and i'll find it a little more credible. Till then, it's just more of the same anti-hunting drivel that we've heard many times before.
Bottom line, i think that before the population explodes, hunting can be an effective solution, and after the population explodes, hunting may be insufficient and therefore additional measures will also be necessary, but hunting will still never hurt.
The current ontario ban reflects toronto-based anti-hunting bias more than scientific facts.
If an animal is shot around the feeding grounds the "Rotte" most likley won't come back for several month.
