The Boars are back !!

[Bigkahuna]

To get things back on track, please refer to the website on "Hogzilla". Some Pig!!!!!

[MacLowlife]

Jock and Phil,

I appreciate your perspectives, even if hogs are only a small part of the question. What I find significant and sad is the extent to which Scots descendants in North America are in a similar situation. First, they have the pigs to deal with. Second, all up and down the coast of South Carolina, in the North Carolina mountains, and in much of New England, the great great grandchildren of Scots immigrants are either leaving the land or making a living by managing it for rich people from Away. Of course, the blind hog does occasionally find his own acorn and now and then, an industrious local lad owns a large tract and enjoys it himself.

We all are victims and beneficiaries of modern life. The internet makes many rural lives more bearable and profitable even as it makes formerly scarce goods less expensive and more available. I am not much of a craftsman, but I would rather sell online a (theoretical) sgian dhu or sporran I had made, rather than having to haul it to some mercantilist big city dealer, or wait for a traveler to find it and me off the beaten path.

If we have reached the stage where the low prices we demand for woven goods can't be reconciled with the wages we need to work in a mill, then let us Thank God there is another place far away where that is not the case- and that such a place has shipping links to us. And let's have a little sausage with our breakfast.

[Bugbear]

I'm trying to decide how I want to cook the ham.

That brine turkey thread has been floating around, and I'm thinking of throwing the ham in the crock pot with a bunch of salt and seasoning

There's also a couple of chops in the freezer...

By the way, beware of using those silicone oven mitts to pick up greasy cast iron skillets...

[Fougasse]

We have two species of deer that are native to the UK.The Red deer and the Roe deer. The Fallow deer were introduced by the Normans,the Muntjac deer,Sika deer and the Chinese water deer were all introduced to this country in the last couple of hundred years ,or so. They now all roam the countryside in the wild. There is also one herd of domestic Reindeer and I believe some one is trying to establish a herd of Elk.

Jock, that last bit might lose a little in trans-Atlantic translation. What in the UK we call an elk, is a moose in N. America. Our red deer is the N. American elk. And of course, the Scottish moose is elsewhere referred to as a mouse!

[Deil the Yin]

Mmmm... Haaamm. ~smak/drool/smak~

I'm trying to decide how I want to cook the ham.

That brine turkey thread has been floating around, and I'm thinking of throwing the ham in the crock pot with a bunch of salt and seasoning

There's also a couple of chops in the freezer...

By the way, beware of using those silicone oven mitts to pick up greasy cast iron skillets...

[Bugbear]

Mmmm... Haaamm. ~smak/drool/smak~

I like to take a pork chop and rub it with kosher salt, then I take my cast iron skillet and stick it under the oven broiler for a while to get it hot. Put the skillet on the stove fire for a minute and slap the chop on; let it use it's own oil. Sear both sides, then sprinkle it with crumbled red chilli.

Then I stick it back under the broiler for a while. This works just as good with a steak.

After it's done, and I put the chop on a plate, I pour/scrape what ever is in the skillet, oils, juices, etc, on the chop.

Oh, it's good!

[Tobus]

I do hope those wild boars take off in Scotland. They should, if there's anything for them to eat. Like others have said, down here in Texas, they have become quite a nuisance. But I've never hunted anything near as fun as wild hogs. Ours are supposedly the result of cross-breeding between Russian boars and some other breeds. They can indeed get very large. The biggest I've seen was probably around 400 lbs, although most of the ones I shoot are in the 120-150 lb. range. This is the perfect eating size:



(I hope that picture doesn't offend anyone)

The really big boars smell terrible and their meat is too gamey to eat, in my opinion. The younger boars and the sows make for the best meat. I'd say that wild hog meat and deer meat comprise the mainstay of my diet, with hog meat being my favorite. I can hardly eat commercially-raised pork any more because it has no flavor.

I do all my hog hunting on foot, usually with a helper who drives them out of the thick brush we have down here. He drives them my direction with me laying in wait. Sometimes dozens of them will come crashing out of the brush, and it's quite a thrill. I've come very close to being ripped to shreds by large boars with mean tushes, which I suppose is half the 'sport' of it.

At any rate, I do hope that the wild boars in Scotland thrive and the folks there get to enjoy hunting them again. In a responsible and managed manner, of course. Although I will say, if they take off there like they have in the US, they'll be fighting to keep their numbers manageable. A sow can breed several times a year, with 8 or more piglets per litter. And then the young ones are in breeding age within a few months.

[skauwt]

i think folks are missing the point of this thread somewhat its about the reintroduction of a species that actually will help manage a landscape thats been somewhat destroyed by hunting
not encourage a free for all hunt to shoot the first one they see

on that note id like the mods to close this topic please
cheers

[Tobus]

not encourage a free for all hunt to shoot the first one they see

I don't think anyone is suggesting a 'free for all'. Responsible management practices should be encouraged.

But they will HAVE to be hunted to keep their numbers in check. That's what those of us in the US are dealing with. They reproduce too quickly and will drive out other species if they are not kept in check by hunting.

[Phil]

As is always the case, this thread has digressed into matters quite separate from the original post which was the re-introduction of wild boar into areas of the Scottish Highlands. At the risk of becoming “boaring” can I just re-iterate that the purpose is not to provide a new source of fresh meat but to try to redress an ecological imbalance. Whether this will succeed without also re-introducing predators for the wild boar remains to be seen and it may indeed be necessary to have some form of culling to maintain a healthy population as wolves are not likely to be welcomed by the inhabitants of the Highlands.
The Highlands were once heavily forested and the landscape of rugged mountains and barren glens which seem so evocative of the place nowadays are, in fact, the result of centuries of de-forestation to feed the demand for timber which, once it was exhausted, led to the mining and use of coal instead. Sadly this period also coincided with the discovery by many landowners that sheep were much more lucrative than people. The only problem was that sheep like to nibble saplings as do the deer which wealthy landowners encouraged to provide sport for themselves and their privileged guests. The result is that the forests never managed to regenerate themselves and we are left with the barren, depopulated wilderness that is Scotland today. With no future in a land where vast swathes were controlled by (largely) unsympathetic landowners the populace had little choice but to gravitate to the urban centres or to emigrate overseas in vast numbers, haemorrhaging much of Scotland’s real treasure – its people.
Initiatives such as this are only now beginning to nibble at the edges of this age-old problem that has blighted Scotland and, limited as they are, perhaps one day we will see a Scotland returned to its true glory and one that is for all of its people, not a privileged few.