I remember back some 30-plus years that some men were turning pigs loose in Wilson County so as to have feral hog hunting year-round in the future. They never realized just what they started. They have very high reproduction dynamics. A sow starts breeding at nine months to a year of age. She can have two litters a year. Thus I read in Southwest Farm Progress that one sow could add a possible 5,000 more feral hogs to the growing herds in just five years. That is through her and her offspring.
Hunting has not curbed the number of feral hogs. These feral hogs are rooting up and destroying some $52 million in damages in Texas each year. They are doing their damage to farms, ranches and orchards. They have even done their damage to poultry farms. I once shot a big hog that was breeding a hog farmer’s pure breed stock. They have destroyed ranch pastures planted in coastal bermuda grass. They also damage fences and irrigation systems.
The March 4 San Antonio Express-News had a front page story on feral hogs running wild in Mission Park South Cemetery. With the expansion of development and the explosion of hog numbers they have been pushed into parts of the urban areas too.
There is, of course, some hunting of feral hogs going on, but they are nocturnal animals and night hunting is not easy, not even legal in deer range. You add to this the fact that some consider the pig one of nature’s smartest animals, you have a tremendous problem. There are a lot of people trapping these pigs. They generally feed them for a time and then butcher them for meat. They are then very good eating and they make some excellent sausage.
It is against the law to poison these hogs. They can be hunted and trapped all year long, but that is not really cutting their number down any.
There was a bill discussed in the Texas Legislature to allow their hunting by helicopters. This would drive them out of their daytime cover and allow them to be shot, but public outcry is expected to not allow this to become law.
The butchering of these animals in today’s economic times could actually be a win, win situation. There is a lot of free meat there that could be harvested anytime. The poor in these economic times could eat, as they say, “High off the hog.”
Their harvesting would also save millions of dollars in Texas agriculture. The feral hog problem is growing and this rural problem is now also an urban problem as seen on San Antonio’s south side cemetery. We also have here an example of why the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department makes it against the law in most cases to introduce new wildlife into our state. We are to be good stewards of God’s earth. The feral hog is getting out of hand and causing great havoc.
Father Samuel Heitkamp is pastor of St. Joan of Arc Church in Kirby and was the director of the former rural life organization in the archdiocese.