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Blocked access might hinder boar hunt
Chris Lawrence For the Daily Mail
Friday November 09, 2001; 11:09 AM.
West Virginia's boar hunters have never had an easy time getting back into the rugged hills the hogs call home. Now they'll have an even tougher time.
Just before the early boar firearm season that began Oct. 25 and ended Oct. 27, coal companies that own most of the prime boar range blocked many of the area's access roads.
"They blocked the roads because of the aggravation created by all-terrain vehicles," says Tom Dotson, district wildlife biologist for the state Division of Natural Resources.
"Boar hunters tend not to go close to mine sites, but last year someone riding a haul road on a motorcycle got hit by a truck. The man with the company told me, ‘I've got to do something.' "
The company dumped truckloads of rock rubble blasted from surface-mine sites onto the main access road that leads into the area between W.Va. 85 and Spruce Laurel Fork.
Dotson says company officials realize the piles of rock probably won't stop all the ATV riders who want to gain access to the area, but they do provide some protection from potential liability. Three new mine sites recently opened on the boar-hunting area's main ridge, and permitting is being processed for a fourth operation just to the north.
Dotson says it's a bit ironic that some of the very conditions that led to creation of West Virginia's boar-hunting resource now stand to inhibit its exploitation.
DNR officials introduced Russian wild boars to the Spruce Laurel watershed in the early 1970s. At the time, the area was largely bereft of big-game animals, and agency administrators believed the boars would create hunting where none existed.
Dotson, who has supervised the boar project from the outset, says the Spruce Laurel watershed was chosen because it contained a vast expanse of rugged, hilly terrain owned by coal and land-holding companies.
"When we put the hogs in there, there weren't any deer, bear, turkeys, or coyotes, and there was very little surface mining and almost no logging," he says.
Three decades have brought considerable change.
"Since that time, a large percentage of the area has been taken out mining, and there's been a lot of logging," Dotson says.
Subsequent increases in the area's bear, deer, and turkey populations have created intense competition for food. Dotson says the competition has caused a decline in the boars' reproductive rate.
To make matters worse, piglet mortality has increased now that coyotes have migrated into the hills and hollows the boars inhabit.
All those factors considered, Dotson says a drastic change in hunting methods -- the use of ATVs in particular -- has had an even bigger impact on harvest numbers.
"It seems everyone has become affluent and owns an ATV," he says. "They drive them up every drain, every hollow, out every ridge."
Four-wheelers might ease the exertion of walking the steep hollows of Boone and Logan counties, but the vehicles might actually have harmed hunters' chances at bagging a boar more than they've helped.
"About all those machines do is forewarn hogs that somebody's coming," Dotson says. "If deer can figure out that ATVs should be associated with danger, a hog can certainly do it better because they're a lot sharper upstairs."
But with key access roads blocked, hunters will find themselves hard-pressed to hunt in the boars' prime range regardless of whether they hunt on foot or rely on ATVs.
"There isn't much we can say when we don't own the land," Dotson says.
"You just can't allow people access to areas where they're shooting rock and have active mining activity."
Despite the restricted access, hunters so far have enjoyed better early season hunting than usual. Bowhunters have killed 10, and rifle-wielding hunters have taken a dozen. Dotson credits the increase to last year's bumper acorn crop, which bolstered reproduction last spring.
This year's late firearm season is scheduled for Dec. 27-29. The archery season, currently in progress, will continue through Dec. 31.
Chris Lawrence For the Daily Mail
Friday November 09, 2001; 11:09 AM.
West Virginia's boar hunters have never had an easy time getting back into the rugged hills the hogs call home. Now they'll have an even tougher time.
Just before the early boar firearm season that began Oct. 25 and ended Oct. 27, coal companies that own most of the prime boar range blocked many of the area's access roads.
"They blocked the roads because of the aggravation created by all-terrain vehicles," says Tom Dotson, district wildlife biologist for the state Division of Natural Resources.
"Boar hunters tend not to go close to mine sites, but last year someone riding a haul road on a motorcycle got hit by a truck. The man with the company told me, ‘I've got to do something.' "
The company dumped truckloads of rock rubble blasted from surface-mine sites onto the main access road that leads into the area between W.Va. 85 and Spruce Laurel Fork.
Dotson says company officials realize the piles of rock probably won't stop all the ATV riders who want to gain access to the area, but they do provide some protection from potential liability. Three new mine sites recently opened on the boar-hunting area's main ridge, and permitting is being processed for a fourth operation just to the north.
Dotson says it's a bit ironic that some of the very conditions that led to creation of West Virginia's boar-hunting resource now stand to inhibit its exploitation.
DNR officials introduced Russian wild boars to the Spruce Laurel watershed in the early 1970s. At the time, the area was largely bereft of big-game animals, and agency administrators believed the boars would create hunting where none existed.
Dotson, who has supervised the boar project from the outset, says the Spruce Laurel watershed was chosen because it contained a vast expanse of rugged, hilly terrain owned by coal and land-holding companies.
"When we put the hogs in there, there weren't any deer, bear, turkeys, or coyotes, and there was very little surface mining and almost no logging," he says.
Three decades have brought considerable change.
"Since that time, a large percentage of the area has been taken out mining, and there's been a lot of logging," Dotson says.
Subsequent increases in the area's bear, deer, and turkey populations have created intense competition for food. Dotson says the competition has caused a decline in the boars' reproductive rate.
To make matters worse, piglet mortality has increased now that coyotes have migrated into the hills and hollows the boars inhabit.
All those factors considered, Dotson says a drastic change in hunting methods -- the use of ATVs in particular -- has had an even bigger impact on harvest numbers.
"It seems everyone has become affluent and owns an ATV," he says. "They drive them up every drain, every hollow, out every ridge."
Four-wheelers might ease the exertion of walking the steep hollows of Boone and Logan counties, but the vehicles might actually have harmed hunters' chances at bagging a boar more than they've helped.
"About all those machines do is forewarn hogs that somebody's coming," Dotson says. "If deer can figure out that ATVs should be associated with danger, a hog can certainly do it better because they're a lot sharper upstairs."
But with key access roads blocked, hunters will find themselves hard-pressed to hunt in the boars' prime range regardless of whether they hunt on foot or rely on ATVs.
"There isn't much we can say when we don't own the land," Dotson says.
"You just can't allow people access to areas where they're shooting rock and have active mining activity."
Despite the restricted access, hunters so far have enjoyed better early season hunting than usual. Bowhunters have killed 10, and rifle-wielding hunters have taken a dozen. Dotson credits the increase to last year's bumper acorn crop, which bolstered reproduction last spring.
This year's late firearm season is scheduled for Dec. 27-29. The archery season, currently in progress, will continue through Dec. 31.
