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A new regulation that prohibits hunting or trapping of free-ranging Eurasian boars in New York State was formally adopted state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens announced today. The regulation is designed to ensure maximum effectiveness of DEC’s statewide eradication efforts. “Enacting a statewide regulation was important to support DEC’s ongoing work to remove this invasive species from the state and to ensure that it does not become established in the wild anywhere in New York,” said Commissioner Martens. “Eurasian boars are a great threat to natural resources, agricultural interests, and private property and public safety wherever they occur and DEC will continue to work to protect these resources and remove wild boars from the state.” Eurasian boars were brought to North America centuries ago and wild populations numbering in the millions are now present across much of the southern U.S. In recent years, wild boar populations have been appearing in more northern states too, often as a result of escapes from enclosed shooting facilities that offer “wild boar hunts.” Governor Cuomo signed legislation on October 21, 2013, which immediately prohibited the importation, breeding or introduction to the wild of any Eurasian boars. Furthermore, the law prohibits possession, sale, transport or marketing of live Eurasian boars as of September 1, 2015. The new law was an essential step in the state’s efforts to prevent Eurasian boars from becoming established in the wild. However, there are already small numbers of Eurasian boars on the landscape in New York. Since 2000, wild boars have been reported in many counties across the state, and breeding in the wild has been confirmed in at least six counties (Tioga, Cortland, Onondaga, Clinton, Sullivan and Delaware) in recent years. DEC is working closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program to remove any Eurasian boars that are reported in New York. To date, more than 150 animals have been captured and destroyed. However, eradication is expensive, time consuming and requires a great deal of manpower. “Hunters have offered to assist our efforts by hunting for boars wherever they occur, but experience has shown this to be counter-productive,” Martens said. “As long as swine may be pursued by hunters, there is a potential conflict with our eradication efforts. Eurasian boars often join together to form a ‘sounder,’ the name for a group of pigs that can number 20 or more individuals. Shooting individual boars as opportunities arise is ineffective as an eradication method often causes the remaining animals to disperse and be more difficult to remove.” Hunters pursuing wild boars in locations where baited traps have been established by DEC or USDA can also undermine these costly and labor-intensive capture efforts. Shooting may remove one or two animals, but the rest of the sounder scatters and rarely comes back together as a group, thereby hampering eradication efforts. In addition to prohibiting take of free-ranging swine by hunters, the new regulation prohibits anyone from disturbing traps set for wild boars or otherwise interfering with Eurasian boar eradication activities. Hunting wild boar is still allowed at enclosed hunting preserves until September 1, 2015. The regulation does provide necessary exceptions for state and federal wildlife agencies, law enforcement agencies, and others who are authorized by DEC to take Eurasian boar to alleviate nuisance, property damage, or threats to public health or welfare. Anyone who observes a Eurasian boar (dead or alive) in the wild in New York should report it as soon as possible to the nearest DEC regional wildlife office or to: [email protected] and include “Eurasian boar” in the subject line. Because it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a domestic pig, pot belly pig or Eurasian boar based solely on a description, reporting of all free-roaming swine is encouraged. Please report the number of animals seen, whether any of them were piglets, the date, and the exact location (county, town, distance and direction from an intersection, nearest landmark, etc.). Photographs of the animals are especially helpful, so please try to get a picture and include it with your report. Full text of the regulation can be viewed on DEC’s Weekly Environmental Notice Bulletin for April 23, 2014, available at http://www.dec.ny.gov/enb/95072.html. This post has been promoted to an article

Hello there. I'm a lifelong archer, living in NYC, and my mom got me into hunting last year. We were shooting at a 3D range and her hunting buddies couldn't believe the shots I was making at 60 yards, I had no idea I was any good, it's just something I've done for fun for a long time and I guess I got pretty good. So I started doing some reading about conservation and I love to cook and I also love backpacking, so I just put those things together and got myself a proper hunting setup and got myself licenced this year. This last weekend I just went up to the Catskills for the early bear season. I hunted out of my tent solo in the forest and holy cow I'm hooked. It's bananas in the bush. I'm so used to being on trails there's a whole other world when you're off the trails. It was physically demanding (I'm in pretty good shape but I feel broken right now), and I feel an incredibly amazing positive energy coming from this experience. Confronting my lifelong fears of bears (I've been solo backpacking for a long time with maybe my dog but usually alone) ... I went into the woods with my pack, some water, my PSE Xforce (it's a beast), Montec G5 broadheads sharpened to a surgical edge and some scents I made following the NYS rule of 1.5 oz. I bought some small glass 2oz bottles and mixed extracts of anise, caramel and vanilla. Damn it's a strong smell. I know the area I was hunting quite well so I went straight to where I knew the bears were moving. Scat everywhere. I've been doing my research and following Cameron Haines, reading his books and it all fell into place. I'll try and keep this brief here and recount my experience under the bear threads where they may help other. No luck but using the Trimble app I logged at least 3 absolutely perfect hiding spots with 10 - 40 yard shots, perfectly hidden with tons of scat and water sources nearby. Exhilarating!

I would like to know where in NYS, and which counties, can I hunt for wild boar/swine, and coyotes? I understand that the only license I need is my small game. Do I need special D.E.C. permission also, and do I catalog them with the D.E.C.? I prefer to hunt with a rifle (30/30), if that helps you to answer my question.