U.S. goes after sly, pesky feral pigs

[AsahinaKimi]

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO – Using the cover of darkness, feral pigs have learned to outsmart even the most seasoned hunters as they set about on their nightly terrors, rooting up crops and suburban gardens, harassing native wildlife and turning watering holes into pigsties.

The invasive porkers have made themselves at home across more than three-quarters of the U.S. and are responsible for an estimated $1.5 billion in damage each year. Most worrisome is their ability to learn from each encounter with a frustrated human.

Their intelligence, in combination with their ability to mate year-round, is what has enabled wild pigs to evade capture and take over prairies, mountain valleys and rugged deserts from Canada to Mexico.

The wild pig population in the U.S. has ballooned to more than 5 million. In one year alone, federal managers trapped and killed more than 32,000 pigs from 28 states and collected thousands of samples to check for the nearly three dozen diseases feral pigs are capable of carrying and passing on to humans, livestock and other wildlife.

Feral pigs have already taken over Texas and are expanding their numbers in other states, but federal and state land managers think they have a chance to tip the balance in New Mexico. They are willing to bet $1 million in federal funds on a yearlong pilot project aimed at eradicating the pigs and using what they learn here to keep them from gaining a foothold elsewhere.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/04/01/environment/u-s-goes-after-sly-pesky-feral-pigs/#.UVme6jeDo5g

[tom2255]

1. The fact that they roam so much makes them even more difficult.

The show up in a field one night and destroy acres of crops. They probably won't be back to that same crop for weeks. Very difficult to predict where they will be and very destructive to everything.

[byeya]

2. Many of these animals are descended from European wild boars brought to the USA by hunters

and let loose for sporting activities. In the Great Smoky Mtns Natl Park they are an ongoing problem. The park gets rid of them, usually by shooting, and they repopulate by coming in from other lands.
Other wild swine are descended from the razorback hogs grown by farmers years ago. It was a common practice to let them roam free and fatten up on acorns and chestnuts and other native plants and then gather them up come "hog killin' time"
Some were never recaptured. They are very destructive of native plants particularly native lilies and other plants that grow from bulbs or bulb-like structures.

[Paladin]

3. Hogs are a big problem on my family's place near San Antonio.

They set traps for the pigs, baited with something really nasty: corn kernels fermented in Big Red (a syrupy-sweet, strawberry-flavored soft drink---if you're Texan, you probably grew up on it).

[mainer]

4. Fascinating.

I guess their diseased status makes them unfit for consumption? Because wild boar sounds tasty.

[Paladin]

6. The smaller ones (under 100 lbs. ) are pretty good eating.

When they get big and old, they get too gamey. I won't elaborate on this, to avoid grossing folks out, but---fleas are a problem.....

[mainer]

9. Well, I'm game.

(no pun intended.)

Having eaten everything from fruit bats to sea slugs, I'd love to give it a taste.

Even big tough pigs should tenderize with some stewing. Cook it with enough spices, throw it into a tortilla, and it seems to me it'd make a pretty good taco.

At least pigs don't seem to carry any prion diseases (mad cow) that I've ever heard of.

[Paladin]

11. Wild pigs are an intrusive, destructive species that could use some thinning-out.

The fact that they taste good is a definite bonus.

[Marrah_G]

5. They really need to do something about this

Those pigs could also feed alot of homeless folks.

[sir pball]

7. USDA/FDA/local health dep't regs usually prohibit that

Wild-caught meat is generally verboten for foodservice unless it's been handled tested and processed by a series of specially-certified people...which = extremely high cost, let alone free for a soup kitchen. It is a shame but that's the way things are..

[Marrah_G]

10. Well that sucks......

[sadbear]

8. A few years ago, I was camping in a state park near Houston, TX

There was an open field there, and across it, an area about the size of a football field had been stripped of its vegetation, and was pock-marked with little 6-inch diameter circles. I asked the ranger what had happened, and he said it was feral pigs.

They are indeed little terrors.

[geek tragedy]

12. Finally, they're going after Wall Street! nt