We've had proposals to shoot feral hogs from helicopters (the classic 'Pork Chopper Bill'), to kill feral hogs with the blood thinner Warfarin ('the Piggy Apocalypse') and now there is another proposal in the works to wipe out the population of feral hogs.
News Radio 1200 WOAI reports hunters would be allowed to shoot feral hogs from a hot air balloon under a bill introduced by State Rep. Mark Keough (D-The Woodlands).
The Texas Farm Bureau's Gene Richardson says the proposal may be funny, but the damage that feral hogs to to agriculture is no laughing matter.
"This is planting season right now, and once you plant your corn, those hogs will go from one end of your field to the other and just rip it all up," he said.
Richardson says feral hogs cause $52 million damage to farmers and ranchers in Texas every single year.
"People throw around the number two and a half million feral hogs in the state, and I have heard numbers as high as five million," he said. "No matter how you look at it, there are a lot of hogs in this state."
Richardson says he doesn't think hunters from hot air balloons could ever make that much impact on the population. Another problem...he says feral hogs general live on watersheds which are managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which does not allow hunting, even from a hot air balloon.