Animal Planets "Invasion of the mutant hogs"

[Art Eatman]

Don't go into a hog pen to feed the hogs and fall over from a heart attack. That happened to a farmer near Ocala, Florida, around 1960.

What remains remained were messy.

They will kill and eat baby sheep and goats. So...

 

[MCgunner]

I knew a little guy worked at the feed store in Port Lavaca, had a scar from his naval to his left nipple from a hog. BUT, he was stickin' 'em with a knife and it got loose of the dogs. That sort of thing happens too often to dog hunters, usually to the dogs, but occasionally to the hunters.

 

[alsaqr]

Unprovoked attacks by wild hogs are very rare: But they do happen. A hog hunting friend was knocked down by a big unseen sow while hunting. He killed that sow with the M1911 pistol worn on his leg. The sow did not have pigs.

This British lady was riding a horse when a huge hog spooked the animal. The horse threw her off and the hog attacked her.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-410319/Nurse-savaged-enraged-giant-pig.html

Three unprovoked attacks by wild boars in Turkey:

phossil.com/thom/4th%20July%20Hog/Wild%20Boar%20Attacks/...

Found numerous attacks by wild hogs in India. But all kinds of crazy stuff happens in India.

This from Pakistan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCs2Z_a2q8M

 

[Double Naught Spy]

LOL, it is hard to call an attack unprovoked when the hog hunter gets attacked by a hog. Most folks would call that self defense!

The British lady's attack might have been by a pig, but there is no indication that it was by a wild hog. It is only identified as a giant pig. Given the low population of wild hogs in England, there is a far greater chance it was by a domestic hog than a wild one.

The Turkish link is incomplete and does not work.

As for the Pakistani video, I don't see anywhere that it was claimed that the attack was unprovoked. For all we know, the lumberjack went after the pig first.

 

[alsaqr]

LOL, it is hard to call an attack unprovoked when the hog hunter gets attacked by a hog.

My friend was simply still hunting in the woods when he was hit by a sow he never saw.

Yep, DNS, all kind of stuff "could have happened". The fact is that the temperament of Eurasian and African boars sometimes differ from your average Montague county farm hogs gone wild.

i have spent thousands of hours hunting, trapping and observing wild hogs in OK and TX. Many of the wild hogs in this area are Eurasian boars and the hybrid descendents of Eurasian boars. Never heard of one of these doing a "bluff charge" either. They either charge or they do not charge.

i'm very leery of the claims put out by hog "experts" and fish and game biologists, in particular. Some of the latter are still claiming that hogs in the wild often have two or three litters of pigs per year.

 

[jmorris]

...like I said bunch of sensationalism....

Sounds like its not any different than any of the "reality" shows.

I am happy to see that there are "gun" shows on TV but I just can't stand to watch them. Think I did make it through 2 episodes of Topshots though.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Yep, DNS, all kind of stuff "could have happened". The fact is that the temperament of Eurasian and African boars sometimes differ from your average Montague county farm hogs gone wild.

i have spent thousands of hours hunting, trapping and observing wild hogs in OK and TX. Many of the wild hogs in this area are Eurasian boars and the hybrid descendents of Eurasian boars. Never heard of one of these doing a "bluff charge" either. They either charge or they do not charge.

Oh, so you have the dreaded Eurasian wild boars in your area too??? In Montague County that borders south central Oklahoma, so do we!! As with the stories hunters tell everywhere about how their boars are bigger, badder, meaner, more aggressive because of the imported wild boars (usually called "Russians") have been imported into the area and released or escaped, we have the same ones. In fact, it was apparently a large game ranch NW of the county seat that was responsible, not that other Russians haven't come in from nearby counties or from your side of the border where they have been reportedly turned out as well.

Everybody seems to have the dreaded Russian boars, but virtually none of them have ever actually had any of the local Russian/Eurasian wild boar or hybrid stock actually genetically tested or confirmed through cranial biometrics. They usually base such field IDs on nondiagnostic claims such as split guard hairs, tail curl, leg length, musculature, disposition, coloration, etc.

 

[alsaqr]

Everybody seems to have the dreaded Russian boars, but virtually none of them have ever actually had any of the local Russian/Eurasian wild boar or hybrid stock actually genetically tested or confirmed through cranial biometrics. They usually base such field IDs on nondiagnostic claims such as split guard hairs, tail curl, leg length, musculature, disposition, coloration, etc.

This hog was killed by me on Ft. Sill in 2007. He had a small tag in his ear from a game farm in Bavaria, Germany. That hog was one of 100 pairs imported from Germany and released in SW OK.

 

[MCgunner]

Yep, DNS, all kind of stuff "could have happened". The fact is that the temperament of Eurasian and African boars sometimes differ from your average Montague county farm hogs gone wild.

i have spent thousands of hours hunting, trapping and observing wild hogs in OK and TX. Many of the wild hogs in this area are Eurasian boars and the hybrid descendents of Eurasian boars. Never heard of one of these doing a "bluff charge" either. They either charge or they do not charge.

The pigs I trap in Calhoun County Texas were escaped from the Powderhorn Ranch, originally bought in the 1930s from the San Antonio zoo and stocked there. There was no feral hog population and they've spread to surrounding ranches including mine. Their phenotype is almost 100 percent European wild hog to this day. Yet, I can walk through my place, sit on the ground dove hunting, work on my stand, whatever, and not fear attack. There's so many hogs out there now, you hear 'em back in the oak motts fighting if you sit there long enough. They don't come out of those motts in daylight. They seem to know who's boss predator out there.

I won't let a grown one out of the trap alive. Nope, I won't do that, but I don't live in paranoia of a hog attack just walking around or working down there. I'm usually armed because I'm usually hunting. My biggest fear there this time of year is stepping on a rattler. Probably more rattlers than hogs down there and the grass is tall, not grazed or shredded. I do wear my snake boots, best defense against rattlers and I've already had 'em tested. But, I don't worry at all about the hogs there. Indeed, I've never heard of ANYone being attacked unprovoked in Calhoun County. It just doesn't happen. If it did to me, I'd run straight to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital in Port Lavaca and get rabies vaccinations.

Doesn't seem to be as many hogs up here and they're all feral, no wild phenotype up this way.

I've posted this paper's link before....

http://books.google.com/books?id=rh...=onepage&q=powderhorn ranch wild hogs&f=false

 

[alsaqr]

I won't let a grown one out of the trap alive.

Neither will i. Sometimes we keep the little ones: A friend raises them in a big boll wagon that has hay bales, water and food. When those pigs reach 50-60 pounds they become barbecue.

 

[Patocazador]

I went to Tennessee years ago to "hunt" "Russian Boars" on a pay-for-play fenced area. 3 years later I was filling up my truck's tank on I-75 and a cow trailer full of feral hogs pulled in. The driver was taking 100 trapped hogs from east-central Florida to the famed "Russian Boar" place to be turned loose for gullible guys like me to kill. They were trapped about 40 miles from my house.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

And know you know...the rest of the story, LOL.

 

[MCgunner]

I went to Tennessee years ago to "hunt" "Russian Boars" on a pay-for-play fenced area. 3 years later I was filling up my truck's tank on I-75 and a cow trailer full of feral hogs pulled in. The driver was taking 100 trapped hogs from east-central Florida to the famed "Russian Boar" place to be turned loose for gullible guys like me to kill. They were trapped about 40 miles from my house.

Texas passed laws regulating the transport of wild pigs a few years back. You can transport directly to a licensed game farm/ranch/preserve or a buyer, though, but you cannot make stops in between and if you don't deliver them, you must kill them.....or something like that. I read the code a while back when I was contemplating selling hogs. Turns out, though, that you don't get enough for pigs to pay for the gas. :rolleyes; Maybe if I had 50 of 'em in a stock trailer, but not 2 or 3 at a time.

 

[alsaqr]

Turns out, though, that you don't get enough for pigs to pay for the gas. :rolleyes; Maybe if I had 50 of 'em in a stock trailer, but not 2 or 3 at a time.

The hog hunting ranches in OK pay $200 or more for a big boar with nice cutters. i know a couple hog trappers who sell all their hogs to those guys.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Okay Tivo finally caught an episode for me. What a huge disappointment. The hype is so overblown to include outright blatant lies. I do like how they included a "team" to come to Texas to come help with the problem, as if the 3 folks of the "team" were going to stay any appreciable time to help. Then afterwards, all the "team" did was watch other people take a few hogs.

They keep referring to the feral hogs as "mutants" having "razor sharp teeth" and that anybody and everybody is in danger by pigs at any time. They are all potential killers, apparently.

"Males have also developed a shield of bone up to 2" thick around their shoulders which offers some protection from a bullet."

Um, no, not even close. The shield is NOT bone.

I have to admit that they did a cool experiment. They put a hog into a small penned area to look at the amount of damage it would do in one night. Neat. Not only did the hog root up part of the area, but apparently had the ability to generate water where there was none before, creating a pool of water in the enclosure. In other words, off camera they ran a lot of water to encourage the hog to dig and wallow.

Of course they hyped pigs spreading disease. All of the diseases carried by pigs are carried by normal livestock and indigenous species already.

At one point, they showed a great sunset behind a cactus noting that "tonight is the culmination of a mission." Interesting. The cactus was a saguaro cactus. These don't occur in Texas. The occur in Arizona.

So much more was wrong with the show, but I will stop. No doubt, hogs are bad, but I don't see where lies need to be created to portray them that way. They aren't mutants. They don't have razor sharp teeth. They don't attack people with any regularity without people first attacking them. Holy moly great googledy moogledy.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Yes, the shield is gristle, not bone, and I have heard handloaders test "pig rounds" using a few layers of housing shingle to simulate the gristle.

Javelina (peccary, skunk pig, sajino) are "New World pigs" native to America distantly related to common domestic pigs brought over from the Old World by settlers. They are more related to hippos than to rodents.

Capybara are a South American rodent bigger (75 to 150 pounds)than javelina (45 to 90 pounds). Both are treated as pests in the near wild. Watching video of both, they can be confused from a distance.

Wild pigs can be dangerous, wild boar has the reputation of stalking hunters, and if they in group get you on the ground they will eat your face off. Actually domestic pigs will do that too. The many of the mutilated bodies photographed by Mathew Brady after the battle of Gettysburg had been savaged by domestic pigs after the battle was over.

But exaggerating the danger of wild pigs in "Invasion of Mutant Hogs" reminds me of a film I saw in the late 1950s: ""The wildest and most vicious of animals is the tiny shrew. The shrew feeds only by the dark of the moon. He must eat his own body weight every few hours, or starve; and the shrew devours everything - bones, flesh, marrow, everything. In March, first in Alaska, and then invading steadily southward, there were reports of a new species: the giant, killer shrew!" --"The Killer Shrews" starring James Best (later in "Dukes of Hazard") and Ingrid Goude (1956 Miss Sweden).

I do wish Animal Planet, NatGeo, etc. would back off the sensationalism, otherwise their DVDs could end up in the bargain bin shrinkwrapped with "Killer Shrews" and "Giant Gila Monster".

 

[MCgunner]

At one point, they showed a great sunset behind a cactus noting that "tonight is the culmination of a mission." Interesting. The cactus was a saguaro cactus. These don't occur in Texas. The occur in Arizona.

I completely missed that! I was probably too busy ROFL at the killer pig qualities they were raving about to pay that close attention.