Don’t Mess With Texas? Well, Somebody Needs To Tell the Hogs

By Linda Orlando

Wild hogs aren’t new to the United States; they’ve been around for hundreds of years, descendants of domestic pigs brought to America in the 1600s by French and Spanish explorers, as well as Eurasian boars imported for hunting in the early 1900s. They can be found in nearly every state in the United States, and according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, there are more than 4 million of them in the country. The problem is, more than half that number have taken up residence in Texas.

Unlike domesticated pigs, feral hogs are nocturnal, and omnivorous. They can grow as large as 400 pounds, they sport four wicked-looking tusks that can extend out as long as five inches from their top and bottom jaws, and they’re quite hairy and muscular. They’re also much meaner than domesticated pigs, becoming fierce and dangerous when cornered. According to Canton cattle rancher Don Metch, you shouldn’t try to take on a feral hog without packing an AK-47, because that’s what you’ll need. "They're nasty, and they got big appetites, and they're multiplying." In fact, they reproduce so rapidly that there's a joke among wildlife officials: When a female hog has six piglets, you can expect eight to survive. Sows can have two litters a year, and their female offspring can get pregnant as young as six months.

Farmers and ranchers in the nation’s largest state are sustaining an estimated $52 million in damages annually because of wild hogs mangling fields and pastures with their razor-sharp tusks. They pillage entire ecosystems by wallowing in stream beds, and they even kill and eat smaller animals. The damage they are causing is extensive: they uproot sweet potatoes, corn, rice, peanuts, and other crops that Texas farmers make their living from. Their snouts are so finely tuned and precise that they can pull up plants one by one, but they’re not neat enough to do that; they are pigs, after all. They routinely tear up pastures and gorge themselves, destroying acres and acres of crops in one night. Beef producers aren’t immune to the rampaging of the hogs, either. The beasts knock down fences, tear through wire, and dig holes in pastureland to get at grub worms and eat grass roots. They also kill small livestock such as sheep and goats.

Farmers and ranchers in the nation’s second most important agriculture state have had enough, and they’re asking the state Legislature and hunters for help in thinning out the droves of hogs. The marauders are now found in 230 of the states 254 counties, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department estimates. "It all paints a picture of very rapid expansion," said Billy Higginbotham, a Texas Cooperative Extension wildlife and fishery specialist. The Texas Department of Agriculture has asked legislators for $500,000 to start a two-year pilot program to study the hogs, in hopes of developing methods for controlling them. In the meantime, Texas relies on its year-round hunting season. Two years ago in East Texas, farmers were so overwhelmed by feral hog damages that Van Zandt County officials offered a $7 bounty for each matched set of hog ears. The program ended in 2004 after residents cashed in on more than 2,000 hogs.

But wildlife officials hope hunters keep on hunting for sport even without the bounty, and maybe even expand their efforts to hunting for profits from sales of the meat. "What we need is more processing plants," said Brian Cummins, an extension agent in Van Zandt County. "And a good sausage recipe."