Wild Pig Hunting on BI (how much, neighborhood, to live)

[McFrostyJ]

Hotzcatz,
Do the pigs that have been feeding on your Sweet Potatoes taste, sweeter?

[Kansoku]

Do they wreak tropical fruit trees too? What about lettuce? Do they have husk that can be sold for high price?

Also if they came to your place to eat something and found you there could they just randomly attack you?

[hotzcatz]

They don't seem to bother fruit trees, but they did eat all the red romaine lettuce I had planted after they ate up all the sweet potatoes. I don't know of anyone selling pig tusks, although they do make them into ornaments to hang on car mirrors. Kinda like the island version of fuzzy dice, I guess. The wild pigs don't attack unless they get cornered or unless you get between a sow and her piglets. But once they are trapped, they want out and are fierce.

The pigs are pretty sweet after eating the sweet potatoes, but it's usually avocado season and guava season which makes more of a difference. After avocado season, they have a lot more fat on them and make better sausage, after guava season they seem a bit sweeter, too. Some folks prefer sow meat to boar meat, if it's an older boar they will just feed it to their dogs instead of eating it. I've not noticed much of a difference in flavor depending on gender, though. Usually we will refrigerate it overnight in salted water so that might take care of any gamey flavor if there was one.

The twenty two - even with high velocity rounds, doesn't have much stopping power at all. My neighbor has a thirty aught six and he has some sort of high velocity round for it. When a big pig is in the trap we call him to come drop it with that. Usually he shoots it through the vertebrae and it drops like the proverbial rock. He has a scope on the rifle so he can be very precise where he shoots. We then hoist it up and skin it, much easier than scraping it. We give him roasts, chops, etc., for shooting it for us so it all works out.

[Kansoku]

Can you sell the skin of them? If to prevent their eating them you grew lettuces on a patch supported by tall beams would that work? Is the reason why they feel sweeter after guava season because they eat guavas? (I wasn't sure if they eat tropical fruits at all)

[henry1]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

The pigs are pretty sweet after eating the sweet potatoes, but it's usually avocado season and guava season which makes more of a difference. After avocado season, they have a lot more fat on them and make better sausage, after guava season they seem a bit sweeter, too. Some folks prefer sow meat to boar meat, if it's an older boar they will just feed it to their dogs instead of eating it. I've not noticed much of a difference in flavor depending on gender, though. Usually we will refrigerate it overnight in salted water so that might take care of any gamey flavor if there was one..

Have you tried buttermilk and rock salt mix to get the gamey flavor out of the meat.we use that on Elk and Deer we take when i was hunting to feed the family when i was younger .

Also try a pineapple juice with a little cinnamon and honey as a overnight soak in a bowel with a lid then serve over white rice it great

Also try it with BBQ sauce soak over night in a bowel with lid then cook it up with eggs and hashbrowns in the morning

[hotzcatz]

I've tried giving the hides away, but nobody seems to have a use for them. They aren't soft and furry, they have hard prickly hair so they wouldn't even make a nice rug. Since there are so many of them and mostly this is vermin eradication instead of an official pig hunt, we just hoist them up, dig a hole below where they are hanging, skin them and drop the hide, innards, head and feet into the hole. Usually, the pigs are between forty and about a hundred and twenty pounds so they aren't huge like mainland domestic hogs.

The feral pigs eat anything they can find, they aren't real picky. They love avocados, will eat guavas, adore sweet potatoes - I think that's because they get to dig them up and they like rooting in the ground with their noses. They dig up grubs and eat whatever they can find mostly.

Buttermilk is pretty expensive, Henry, generally we just use an overnight soak in salt water. The pineapple juice with cinnamon and honey almost sounds Chinese. Maybe a touch of ginger root and shoyu, too, and then make sweet and sour pork out of it? Hmm, perhaps next time I make sausage, I'll try a "BBQ" sausage. That would fry up nice for breakfast or even dinner. I've been doing Italian and summer sausages with the occasional foray into braunschwiger with the livers.

[henry1]

I forgot that milk and other items are a little overpriced .I learned the pineapple and cinnamon and honey trick from a friend and she told it takes the gamey flavor out of the meat

try some of the diff spices mix in the meat when you make upa breakfast sausage that goes good with eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

The feral pigs eat anything they can find, they aren't real picky.

They do like the strawberry guava a lot, which is one of the reasons to clear this invasive from your property. They are also very fond of the endangered hapu'u tree ferns, which they knock over to get at the pulpy middle. The Volcanoes National Park has invested a lot of time, effort and money in clearing the pigs from the park in order to give the hapu'u a better chance of surviving.

[nbarca]

I've done a lot of hunting when in college at Hilo. Just about everywhere has pigs except lava flows, however, even kipukas surrounded by lava can have good pig hunting. Look for kipukas with deeper soil and large trees. Pigs also require water, so you can rule out the dryest areas. Those areas will have goats and or sheep instead. The entire windward side is loaded with pigs from sea level to high on the dry slopes of Mauna kea and mauna loa. Cow Pastures have many pigs.

Saddle road is good and has lots of public land. It's often dense uluhe and ohia forest, which is not great pig country but they are there. Pigs are all throughout the entire hapu'u-ohia forested regions. Koa forests tend to have an open understory and are better for rifle hunting. Many areas are so thick that most will have a hard time with just a gun or bow and need dogs to find and catch or bay the pig. Those cases, you can always hunt property edges or roadways.

I don't really want to give out anyone's honey holes over the internet. Just go explore in the bush and you are sure to find pig sign. They can be terrific eating too depending on how good of shape they are at the time.

[nbarca]

Originally Posted by OpenD

They do like the strawberry guava a lot, which is one of the reasons to clear this invasive from your property. They are also very fond of the endangered hapu'u tree ferns, which they knock over to get at the pulpy middle. The Volcanoes National Park has invested a lot of time, effort and money in clearing the pigs from the park in order to give the hapu'u a better chance of surviving.

...well, hapu'u is actually one of the most common plants in the state and is not yet endangered, although it may be on the path 100 years from now if pigs continue to consume them faster than they can replenish. That's an "if". I have not read scientific studies on the matter but realize that hapu'u forests were once described as "noxious" and inpenetrable thickets.

National park is mandated to protect native plants and animals and, correct, has put a lot of effort into removing pigs, goats, and sheep from park lands so that native ecosystems can have a better chance. Endangered plants too, although they often require even more work to save.

Hunters often hunt off the national park fences, as they serve as access trails deep into surrounding forests that still have many pigs.