Nail a hog from on high

Mertzon, TX is taking hunting to a new level. If law proposed by Rep. Sid Miller is passed, you’ll be able to jump on a helicopter and take pot shots at wild hogs … if you have a permit.

Lock and load! Grab a rifle or shotgun, set the rotors in motion.

These hogs have been causing plenty of property damage across Texas. Not only are they tearing up crops on farms, they’re now uprooting golf course turf and disrupting the lives of suburban Texans. An estimated 2 million wild hogs cause $52 million in crop damage, so there is a serious side to this story.

If the new law can make it through the legislature, it will be the first of its kind in the United States. A handful of other states (such as Alaska) do allow aerial hunting, but only to keep predators, like wolves, at bay. Pigs, it seems, don’t have any natural predators. They can even kick some coyote ass.

So, death will have to come from above. A lot of people are doing this.

Lat year, 1,100 hog-killing permits were issued, up from 201 in 2000. If Texans can start busting caps from on high, the number could go higher. Of course, there’s always someone with a gripe. Jay Smith, owner of Smith Helicopters in Cotulla, TX, says, “If they’re going to open up to where you can do this and anybody who’s got a helicopter can go off to an old boy’s place and hunt, that’s going to be bad.” Hell, the rancher’s dog might get iced!

Fortunately, Rep. Miller has promised that the hunting would be closely regulated (bound to piss off the gun nuts), though he hasn’t put together many of the details yet.

Once the wrinkles are ironed out, book that trip to Texas. You’ve always wanted to go, and now you have the perfect reason: hittin’ hogs from a helicopter!

[Via Pocono Record, photo via Beard Papa]