by Rod_outbak » 20 Aug 2018, 8:51 am
[quote="bigrich"]
[quote="Rod_outbak"]
Desert Channels QLD did a helicopter pig eradication program about 5-6 years ago; down in the channel country. I think it was South of Windorah.
Talking to a couple of people involved, they were using these .308 Ruger Scouts from the helicopter.
Must have been happy with the rifle; my understanding is they wore 3 of them out...
I remember at the time; seeing the numbers of pigs shot, and struggling to comprehend how many they nailed.
I vaguely recall they were buying the ammo in lots of 10,000 rounds.
[/quote]
christ almighty that's a lot of bacon ! and a lot of bullets ! ruger should've used that info in their marketing. speaks volumes for the rifle. that's a interesting piece of info rod. i remember as a kid watching helicopter shoots on tv doco's, back then
(pre port arthur), i remember they were using SLR's and M14's . hopefully this gunsite ruger should be a good thing. i thought about building a carbine type rifle on a 6.5 swede,(my favorite rifle ) but after all the gun smithing and stuffing around, getting the ruger makes sense. thought about lever guns, but a compact mauser style carbine in 308 is more me :thumbsup:
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From DCQ 2011-2012 Annual Report p36: -
To date, “Pigs Might Fly” has seen 25 days of aerial shooting and baiting carried out across the Barcoo, Cooper and Diamantina catchments.
Through aerial shooting 11,796 pigs have been shot and an unknown number from aerial baiting.
The program has currently covered 1,205,000 hectares of Channel Country. Stage Two will see aerial shooting campaigns carried out across all three catchments covering both areas already shot and those not covered in Stage One.
From DCQ 2012-2013 Annual Report p27: -
We have been able to complete 230,000 hectares of control works with project funding from the Queensland and Australian governments, and in-kind support from land holders.
Around 28,000 pigs have been taken out of these systems to date.
The cooperation and support of landholders and project partners has been invaluable to the success of the project. However, continued vigilance is needed as feral pig populations have the potential to grow at a rate of 86% in twelve months given the right conditions, enabling them to recover quickly after control.
[I suspect this ~28k figure is over the whole period of the project. Still a lot of pigs, though...]
We live a good 450kms+ from where this was conducted, and we saw a notable drop in our local pig populations over the following year.
Cheers,
Rod.
Yep; A LOT of hot pork...
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Sharing the extreme love with cats in Outback QLD