I read this thing and got a chuckle out of it. So the Christian hunters used to keep the pig population in check in Iraq back in the day? Interesting.
My only message to the folks in Kirkuk is that if you want those pigs eradicated, then issue hunting licenses and tags. Then allow the hunters to sell the pigs to someone who wants them for food. You could create an entire industry out of it, and harvest some pig.
You could also bring in some folks to eradicate the pigs for you. I know plenty of hunter/contractors out there that could easily take a dent out of your feral hog population.
If you turned it into an exotic hunting reserve type deal, you might attract some tourists looking for something interesting. Rich hunters go all over the world for safaris in places like Africa. Iraq would be a very unique experience for this class of hunter.
Another idea is to let your soldiers hunt and kill these things. They can work on their marksmanship skills and squad movements through the mountains and flat lands. Turn hunting the pigs into a military exercise of sorts, complete with navigation and tracking. Take lemons, and make lemon aide out of the deal. –Matt
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In this war, pigs are besting Iraqi farmers
By Michael GisickApril 13, 2010
KIRKUK, Iraq — Of all the calamities war has loosed upon Iraq, pigs are not among the most obvious.
Yet, there they are, across a growing swath of northern farmland, a scourge of feral swine risen from the reeds to root among the furrows and wreak havoc on the fields.
“We farmers don’t even want to plant anymore because the pigs just eat it all,” said Abdullah Abdullah, a farmer southwest of Kirkuk whose fields have been trampled by swine. “And this animal, he is not just eating like other animals. He also destroys.”
In better times their numbers were checked, in part, by hunting parties of Christians from Kirkuk who, unlike the Muslim farmers of the countryside, wanted the pigs for food.
