{"id":10077,"date":"2012-05-08T12:09:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T17:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=10077"},"modified":"2012-05-08T13:03:38","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T18:03:38","slug":"what-we-learned-about-invasive-species-while-drinking-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/05\/08\/what-we-learned-about-invasive-species-while-drinking-beer\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Learned About Invasive Species While Drinking Beer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8056\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/13\/the-top-ten-invasive-species-in-texas\/feral-pig-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8056\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8056\" title=\"Feral pig\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/03\/Feral-pig1-300x200.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/03\/Feral-pig1-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/03\/Feral-pig1-620x414.png 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/03\/Feral-pig1.png 782w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy of Dave Irving via Flickr Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Feral hogs cause over $50 million in agricultural damage in Texas each year.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Monday night StateImpact Texas hosted an event called<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/kut.org\/2012\/03\/views-and-brews-the-new-pornography-of-violence\/\">Invasive Species and Why We Love Them With Salt<\/a><\/em>, part of KUT Austin&#8217;s regular<a href=\"http:\/\/kut.org\/category\/storyboardaustin\/views-and-brews\/\"> Views and Brews: Conversations at the Cactus Cafe <\/a>series. We took a look at the issues of invasive species in Texas (over beer) and examined some of the solutions on the table.<\/p>\n<p>And one of the best solutions is to simply put them on the table. That&#8217;s the preferred option with one of the more destructive invasive species in Texas, feral hogs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How would I solve the problem?&#8221; posited hunter, forager and chef Jessie Griffiths of <a href=\"http:\/\/daidueaustin.net\/\">Dai Due Austin<\/a>. &#8220;Tiger prawns, wrapped in feral hog bacon, and then grilled over mesquite.&#8221; Griffiths serves wild boar tacos at an Austin-area farmers market and leads hunts for feral hogs in northeast Texas.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We try to use as much of it as possible,&#8221; Griffiths said at the panel. &#8220;At some point we\u2019d like to get to 80 percent of our pork use from feral hog.&#8221; He said he&#8217;s also focusing on education, by teaching landowners what to do with trapped hogs. &#8220;Point A is a trapped hog,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Point B is dinner.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h4>Building a Market<\/h4>\n<div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/20\/4-theories-on-how-tiger-prawns-ended-up-in-the-gulf-of-mexico\/\">4 Theories on How Tiger Prawns Ended Up in the Gulf of Mexico<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/05\/in-texas-you-may-soon-be-able-to-hunt-with-a-silencer\/\">You Could be Hunting with a Silencer Soon in\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/20\/west-texas-burros-get-reprieve\/\">West Texas Burros Get Reprieve<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/13\/the-top-ten-invasive-species-in-texas\/\">The Top Ten Invasive Species in\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/30\/why-you-should-eat-donkey-a-conversation-with-andrew-zimmern\/\">Why You Should Eat Donkey: A Conversation with Andrew Zimmern<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/03\/Nutria1.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/invasive-species\/\">What You Need to Know About Invasive Species in\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>John Davis, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/business\/about\/divisions\/wildlife\/\">Wildlife Diversity Program Director <\/a>at the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/\">Texas Parks and Wildlife Department<\/a>, said that it&#8217;s important to draw a distinction between hunting and simply killing the feral hog for sport. &#8220;Unless you\u2019re harvesting the animal, you\u2019re not hunting,&#8221; David said. But he also expressed concern that if a market is created to put feral hogs on Texas dinner plates and restaurant menus, that could ultimately exacerbate the issue. &#8220;If there\u2019s really a market for it, people may propagate the species to support that market, like cattle,&#8221; Davis said. &#8220;Then it becomes a problem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While for some the idea of eating feral hog is unappetizing, Griffiths said that once he started replacing the pork meat in his sausages with wild boar, his sales quadrupled. &#8220;There&#8217;s three million feral pigs in Texas,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Once people had it, they realized, hey, this isn&#8217;t a stretch. My kids will eat this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Griffiths also went into the rapid population growth of feral hogs. He said they reach sexual maturity in just six months. &#8220;Their gestation period is about 114 days. And the litter size is between eight and ten in good condition. Do the math. These things are exploding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But while feral hogs are ripe for harvesting and widely viewed as a public nuisance, John Davis of Parks and Wildlife said that with other species, it&#8217;s hard to get people to accept the fact that they need to be removed from the ecosystem. &#8220;It\u2019s much easier to tell people we\u2019re going get rid of Burmese pythons because a lot of people don\u2019t like snakes. If it\u2019s warm and fuzzy and people have gotten used to it, like feral cats, it\u2019s much more difficult.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h4>Who Watches Out for Invasive Species?<\/h4>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s very fractured,&#8221; Leslie Hartman, the\u00a0Matagorda Bay Ecosystem Leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife. &#8220;In Texas, it\u2019s Parks and Wildlife [and] some is the Department of Agriculture. It depends very specifically on what species you\u2019re talking about.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People aren\u2019t caught that often,&#8221; Davis of Parks and Wildlife said. &#8220;But introducing invasives, even intentionally, happens all the time.&#8221; He said that the English Sparrow and European Starling birds were both purposefully introduced by someone that wanted birds that had been mentioned in Shakespeare&#8217;s plays. Today&#8217;s feral hogs were<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/huntwild\/wild\/nuisance\/feral_hogs\/\"> introduced by Spanish explorers<\/a> some 300 years ago.\u00a0And some intentional introductions were even done by the government, as in the example of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kudzu#United_States\">Kudzu<\/a>. &#8220;We may not know they\u2019re invasive until ten years from now,&#8221; Davis said.<\/p>\n<p>For that reason, biological controls are typically the last resort for agencies like Parks and Wildlife when dealing with invasive species. &#8220;After chemical control, mechanical control, any other means first before biological control,&#8221; said Hartman of Parks and Wildlife. And the best way of dealing with them? &#8220;Prevention, prevention, prevention,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Hartman said that to that end, there are both state and federal lists of species prohibited from importation. &#8220;But unfortunately a new invasive is not going to be on that list, Hartman said. &#8220;So a lot of states try to do approved lists: you can bring it in and we don\u2019t think it will be a big issue. But getting that through the legislature is always very difficult.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h4>Why Texas Has a Unique Problem<\/h4>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll try to be diplomatic here,&#8221; Davis of Parks and Wildlife said. &#8220;97 percent of Texas is privately-owned land. At the risk of admitting an embarrassment, we\u2019re not real effective.&#8221; The issue is that Parks and Wildlife has very few lands where it can actively manage invasive species. &#8220;We have wildlife management property and we try to bring landowners in to educate them,&#8221; Davis said. &#8220;But the reality is, there\u2019s a lot of land out there and we don\u2019t know where things are.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Texas Parks and Wildlife has a program called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texasinvasives.org\/\">Texas Invasives<\/a> that tries to get landowners to participate in monitoring and\u00a0eradicating\u00a0invasive species. &#8220;But we\u2019re really not that\u00a0successful,&#8221; Davis said. &#8220;We just don\u2019t have the resources.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll have more up on the panel this week, including video. Thanks to everyone who came out or followed along on our Twitter feed, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/StateImpactTX\">@StateImpactTX<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday night StateImpact Texas hosted an event called Invasive Species and Why We Love Them With Salt, part of KUT Austin&#8217;s regular Views and Brews: Conversations at the Cactus Cafe series. We took a look at the issues of invasive species in Texas (over beer) and examined some of the solutions on the table. And [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":8056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[100,90],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10103,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10077\/revisions\/10103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}