“The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce (MDAC) will be accepting applications for its Wild Hog Control Program (WHCP) Monday, September 28, through Monday, October 12.

“Ag Commissioner Andy Gipson says, “smart” wild hog traps will be provided to landowners and managers for the control of wild hogs on private agricultural and forestry lands in Mississippi. Traps will be deployed in concentrated focal areas across the state, which will be determined by MDAC through the application process. MDAC will provide the training necessary to use the “smart” traps and technical guidance regarding the most effective methods to trap and control wild hogs on private lands.”

Read more. Recommendation is one trap per 1000 acres so small landowners are asked to cooperate and submit one application.

I forgot to mention it, but alligator season ended not too long ago. Someone snagged a 12’1″ gator.

Story here. This gator had been tagged nine years ago so they were able determine its growth rate:  “77.625 inches of growth over the last 9 years.”

The story has this gem of an insight:

MDWFP alligator program coordinator Ricky Flynt estimates the average annual growth for most tagged alligator returns in Mississippi have been between 5-8 inches with many outliers above and below the average.

[should be “has been”]

In a population of alligators which has been tagged, measured (linear from nose to tail or whatever), and later remeasured, the average rate of growth (ROG) in inches per year IS A SINGLE VALUE, not a range: (ROG₁ + ROG₂ + ROG₃ + … + ROG_n) / n

If what he intended to state was that, by definition most gators– 68%– have ROG within one standard deviation of the mean, and that is from 5 to 8 inches per year, that’s what he should have said. That of course assumes ROG is normally distributed, and if it is that means the average ROG is 6.5″ per year.

“Many outliers above and below the average.” What drivel. A statistical outlier has to be, again by definition, really really really different from the rest of the values in a data set. (There are ways to determine legitimate outliers.) “Many outliers” just don’t make no sense. At best it’s a contradiction. At worst it represents complete and utterly stupid bordering on imbecilic ignorance.

And one more thing. I know nothing about what reptilian growth rate curves look like, but I happen to have the internet right here.

Who would ever have thunk this? Growth rate is a function of age! Who knew?

I have things to do but I will leave you with this:

Fabens (1965) has reviewed a procedure
for fitting capture-recapture data with a
growth curve of the form
x = a(l – be^-kt)
where x is size expressed as TL, t is age of
the animal in months (8 mo 1 yr), a is an
upper bound of x (to be estimated), b is a
parameter (to be estimated), k is a parameter (to be estimated), and e is the base of
natural logarithms.

And suggest that there can be biologically plausible conceptions of “b” and “k.” But what do I know about reptilian growth curves?