Tyler D. Johnson

Field & Stream Report: The Importance of Hog Control

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:00:00 -0500

•Bill Stiver stalks wild boars after nightfall from the Appalachian Trail. He carries a Remington Model 810 12-gauge mounted with a night-vision scope and a spotting light. Sometimes he packs a .30/06 equipped with a silencer. When he finds a hog, Stiver shoots it, records its characteristics and GPS location, then hunts down another one. And he does it under the noses of 9 million tourists. Nutcase? Bacon fiend? Neither. Stiver leads the hog-removal team in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where, as in all national parks, hunting by the general public is prohibited. But his federally funded mandate is to eradicate the destructive, nonnative feral hog population.

Biologists like Stiver have killed hogs in the park since 1959, but Sus scrofa reproduces faster than any big North American mammal. Hogs have been spreading throughout the country, and according to experts, 50 to 70 percent of a population must be harvested annually to even make a dent. In addition to the rooting damage they cause to vegetation, hogs carry pseudorabies and brucellosis and have been known to eat fawns, calves, sheep, and turkeys.

Stiver's five-member team works from winter through early summer—sometimes camping for a week—and kills an average of 300 hogs a year. They aren't the only people allowed to hunt in a national park; last year, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park recruited hunters to control its feral sheep population. Some of Stiver's team members also hunt hogs on California's Channel Islands. "We have a huge task trying to get rid of every pig," says Stiver. "We'll probably never be done." —TYLER D.JOHNSON

Mule Deer Attacks Man

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Gene Novikoff was watering a shrub outside of his Cameron, Montana, home last August when he was assaulted by an unlikely attacker: "He had me cornered and lowered those antlers," he says. "Here I am, 80 years old, wrestling with the damn thing. I fell over, and then he really went to work on me." The perpetrator was a 3-year-old muley buck, which stomped Novikoff for five minutes. When the deer became distracted by its reflection in a nearby car, the octogenarian crawled into the house, bellowing to his wife for his .22. He fired six shots—hitting the buck in the rump—before it ran off. Novikoff was left with a cracked rib, cuts, and almost a hundred bruises.

"He's lucky to be alive," says Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden Marc Glines. "He looks like he went to a biker bar and got beat up." Glines had already been hunting the belligerent buck, which over the summer had invaded garages, harried anglers, and been twice nailed with bear spray after chasing kids.

Glines eventually found the wounded animal and put an end to its suffering—and its hooliganism. "That deer wouldn't have made it through the winter," he says. "Not to mention hunting season." —TYLER D. JOHNSON

Are New Mexico's Imported Oryx a Threat to Mule Deer?

fieldandstream-editor — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 20:00:00 -0400

In a recent study, a high percentage of the African oryx in New Mexico--which were first introduced to the White Sands Missile Range in the late 1960s--tested positive for exposure to a new form of malignant catarrhal fever (MCF). What does this mean for the oryx now? Not much. They haven't exhibited any symptoms, and the disease could be a normal part of their biology. What could this mean for native deer populations in the future? A lot. It's not yet known whether the new form of MCF affects deer, but if a deer falls ill to other forms it usually dies within days. Oryx are already tough competition for mule deer, and the study has biologists concerned.

"There are damn few mule deer left in the White Sands Missile Range," says Louis Bender, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey/New Mexico Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. "You have to look long and hard to find one."

The state hopes to reduce its population of 3,000 to 5,000 oryx and issues up to 2,000 tags in a year.

"About the only thing oryx die from is a bullet," says Pat Mathis, the southwest area game manager for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. --TYLER D. JOHNSON

Elk Death Answers

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 05:30:00 -0400

The 300 Wyoming elk that suffered paralysis and death over several weeks this winter appear to have succumbed to toxins in lichen.

Tumbleweed shield lichen, Xanthoparmelia chlorochroa, is common in Wyoming's arid lands, but it contains usnic acid, which most likely proved fatal to wintering elk. After finding the lichen in the rumen of afflicted elk, scientists with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department gathered a truck load and fed it to three captive elk. Two quickly went down with the same muscular weakness that dropped elk across Wyoming Red Rim Daley Unit in early February.

But with the answer came more questions: Is the lichen always this toxic? Why these elk? A native herd spent the winter 15 miles north in the same drainage and remained healthy.

"One of the hypotheses is that elk may be able to detoxify small amounts of this lichen," says Dr. Walt Cook, a Game and Fish veterinarian. "But the elk that died don't normally winter in that location and they ate a lot of lichen Â¿Â¿Â¿ some rumen contents were 50% lichen Â¿Â¿Â¿ so maybe they weren't able to process it."

Winter storms drove the elk to wind-blown ridges where drought-stricken foraging conditions were poor and lichen was one of the few choices. Usnic acid, used in diet supplements and proven to cause liver damage in humans, is known to exist in the lichen but scientists are seeking a direct link to the elk's symptoms. So while newspapers went for the quick answer and baffling headlines ("Diet chemical may have killed elk"), Dr. Merl Raisbeck of the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory went to work in his chemistry lab.

"Compounds that cause liver damage don't usually cause muscle damage," says Raisbeck. "The only way to be 100% certain (about the lichen) is to extract the compounds from the lichen and go the full testing cycle."

That could take a year to five years and will run up a hefty tab. Hunting restrictions for the area near Rawlins are likely while biologists try to determine if there is any continuing threat to the elk and, if so, what to do about it. The options are few: improve forage conditions and haze the animals away from suspect areas if more die-offs occur.

"That's extreme," says Cook. "So it's important for us to identify exactly what happened out there."