Pork Chopper (helicopter used for shooting hogs)

The Texas legislature heard a bill in 2009 to legalize “pork choppers”—helicopters (“choppers”) used to hunt feral hogs (“pork”). “Pork choppers” were legalized in 2011.
 
A “pork chopper” can also mean an instrument used to slice up a hog, or a legislator dedicated to chopping “pork barrel” bills.
 
 
Denton (TX) Record-Chornicle
Texas lawmakers consider bill to legalize high-flying hog hunting
05:39 PM CST on Thursday, January 29, 2009
By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
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AUSTIN – Lawmakers are taking aim at a different kind of pork with a proposed bill that would legalize hunting feral hogs from a helicopter.
 
The pork choppers would thin out the 1.5 million wild hogs that cause an estimated $52 million in property and crop damage annually. And landowners might recoup some of their damages by leasing hunting rights to flyers.
 
Mywesttexas.com
Pork Choppers: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
‘You’re not going to have some bubba up there going, “Pass me a beer and ammo” and hunting some hogs. We certainly want to do it right.’
Posted: Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:00 am | Updated: 7:59 am, Mon Oct 5, 2009.
Associated Press
MERTZON - Millions of wild pigs weighing up to 300 pounds have been tearing up crops, trampling fences and eating just about anything in their path in Texas. But now they had better watch their hairy backs.

A state lawmaker is proposing to allow ordinary Texans with rifles and shotguns to shoot the voracious, tusked animals from helicopters.
 
Bellingham (WA) Herald
POSTED: Monday, Aug. 29, 2011
Texans are ready to hunt feral hogs from helicopters
Steve Campbell - The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Pork choppers,” Texas’ newest weapon in the war on feral hogs, will take to the skies Thursday when it becomes legal for hunters to buy seats on hog-hunting helicopters and gun down as many pigs as they can put in their sights.
 
With more than 2 million feral hogs rooting around the Lone Star State, there will be plenty of targets for aerial gunners willing to pay $475 for an hour of heli-hunting.
 
Vertex Helicopters is already bringing home the bacon as a result of the measure passed by the Texas Legislature this year.
 
Abilene (TX) Reporter-News
‘Pork choppers’ go to work today as feral hog season opens
By Larry Zelisko
Posted August 31, 2011 at 11 p.m
Coincidentally, on the same day that hunters can begin to scour the skies for doves, hunters in helicopters can take aim down on feral hogs.

A new state law goes into effect today that allows people to pay to hunt hogs from helicopters, or what some have nicknamed “pork choppers.”
 
With the new law, Dustin Johnson, owner of Knox City-based Cedar Ridge Aviation, said his business is changing completely. For three years, landowners have been paying him to get rid of hogs by shooting them from helicopters. Now, he said, hunters will be paying him to shoot hogs.