USA experiences population boom - of feral hogs
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
Booming numbers of wild hogs are colliding with motorists, devouring crops, spreading disease and terrifying landowners from tony towns on the Pacific Coast to the swamps of the Carolinas.
Feral pigs wield four-inch razor-sharp tusks and breed so prolifically that their populations are escalating dramatically in some places.
"We know that Texas has more feral hogs than any other state," says Billy Higginbotham, a professor at Texas A&M University. "With 1.5 million in the state, we will never eradicate them. The best we can hope for is to keep their numbers under control."
So-called feral hogs are descendants of swine that fled farms or boars that were released by hunters for sport. They are thriving in the wild, in some cases reaching 400 pounds or more.
What all feral pigs share in common is an unbridled appetite for everything from lady-slippers to acorns to zucchini. They've been known to tear up hundreds of acres of soil in a few nights looking for what is beneath, ruining crop land. If they don't find enough food in the wild, they'll plow through trash cans and yards.
And they reproduce like rabbits, breeding litters of a dozen or more piglets twice a year.
"I've seen as many as 19 babies," says Trent Horne, a 35-year-old hunting guide from South Carolina. "They follow the sow around like ducklings follow a mama duck. Alligators get the little ones down here. Snakes get some, too. But wild pigs are smart, and mama pig is a pretty good protector."
Their booming numbers have caused headaches across the USA:
• In the scenic coastal city of Carmel, Calif., state transportation officials put up "Pig Crossing" signs recently on Highway 1. The warnings went up after a motorcyclist received serious head injuries after he slammed into a bunch of pigs darting across a road last year.
"These are not your Babe-type pigs," says Colin Jones, a California Department of Transportation spokesman. "They're wild pigs, right next to an internationally known highway. You wouldn't expect to see them here."
• A wild pig gored a teenager in Louisiana, igniting fears of rabies after the animal tested positive for the disease. Later tests showed the animal did not have rabies.
• Feral hogs carry diseases including brucellosis, pseudorabies and tuberculosis. Some cause reproductive problems in domestic pigs, Missouri wildlife officials say. Hunters also have been chased up trees by aggressive pigs in the Show-Me State.
Higginbotham says the feral pig population in Texas has exploded in the last decade. He surveyed landowners in the eastern part of the state and found increasing numbers had reported seeing the hogs on their land in recent years.
One Texas property owner told Higginbotham in a survey, "I fear allowing my grandchildren to go beyond the yard as they might be attacked by wild hogs."
Several states have responded by declaring open season on wild pigs year-round with no limit on the number that can be bagged.
Tennessee, for example, allows hunters to kill as many wild pigs of either sex as they wish on private land, with the owner's permission.
The Missouri Department of Conservation pleads with hunters on its Web site: "If you encounter a feral hog while hunting deer or other game, shoot it on sight."
Van Zandt County, Texas, has put a bounty on the heads of wild hogs. The county pays $7 for each matched pair of ears from feral hogs. In one month, the county wrote checks for 568 pairs.
Hawaii has one of the USA's longest-running and most serious problems with feral pigs. Polynesian islanders brought the first pigs to the islands several centuries ago. Capt. James Cook, the first European visitor, brought in reinforcements hundreds of years later.
Feral pigs in Hawaii inhabit dense cover, making it hard to determine how many live on the islands, says Stephen Miller, a conservation official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Hawaii. They rip down and eat Hawaii's hapuu ferns, which soar more than 20 feet, leaving behind a barren forest floor that erodes to mud during rainfall and allowing weeds to spread unchecked.
Yet there is an upside to the pig problem: their taste.
"What struck me is that it wasn't sinewy," Miller says. "It was quite good, quite tender."
. He'd only been knocked out cold
