Biloxi, Mississippi — (AmmoLand.com) – “If a hundred rats came into your house would you kill them one at a time in a humane fashion, or would you kill every last one as quickly as you could?” a Texas farmer asked a person who was critical of the most effective varmint elimination technique. “These feral hogs are like 200 pound rats and they’ve invaded my farm, my home.”
Hogs Gone Wild
The feral hog problem in Texas as well as the southeast and west did not happen over night, it has been intensifying year after year since the hog was introduced to the United States by the original Spanish explorers. Domestic hogs that have escaped captivity as well as imported Russian hogs have crossbred to create an army of wild or feral pigs. This swine army is marching all across the Lone Star state as well as neighboring Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Oh, and don’t forget the People’s Repubik of Kalifornia. (Side note; the reason the population is out of control in KA is due to the overly restrictive laws and rules in that state, the laws tend to favor the pest animal over humans)
Estimates by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife had the number of feral hogs at 1.5 million in 1990. The most recent estimates show an increase to nearly 3.2 millions. Yes, the population has more than doubled in twenty years. Due to their miraculous ability to multiply and to adapt and survive, wildlife officers say that in order to keep the feral hog population from increasing, we, man, need to eliminate 75 percent of the existing population. We are not currently coming anywhere close to that number.
Nature’s Problem?
Why don’t we leave it up to nature? Let the animals balance it out among themselves? Wild pigs are originally native to Asia, where wolves and tigers eat them. Wolves are in short supply down south and, thankfully, we don’t have a wild tiger population. Mountain lions or cougars only account for a tiny percentage of wild pigs killed each year. Other than that, the feral hog has no natural predator, except for…
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