After my encounter with pigs last week, I found myself down an internet rabbit hole or should I say pig hole? While I was there, I discovered something about the state of Texas that I had not heard about before: Texas has a huge problem with wild hogs.
It is estimated that there are around three million wild hogs in Texas and of course they all need to eat and drink. They are intelligent, opportunistic creatures and to get to food they obey no rules. Omnivorous, they invade farmland, homesteads, rubbish tips and gardens - frequently causing heart-breaking damage for many rural Texans.
The little piggies I photographed last week were pretty cute but fully grown wild Texan hogs are not cute - they are monstrous - the stuff of nightmares. With black bristles and deadly tusks, they can weigh in at over four hundred pounds.
The hog problem has been growing at an alarming rate since the 1980's. Here in this Yorkshire city I might see an occasional fox or a badger - occasionally a rat or a feral cat but I am pleased to say that I have never seen rampaging hogs tearing through the suburbs. Those suckers can kill you!
Yes. I've read about this. Hogs are not native to the US. The Spanish introduced them, I think. We have a big problem with them in Florida, too. They root up the forest so that the native animals cannot find forage. It's so sad. And yes, they are dangerous.
ReplyDeleteHas "Deadeye" Moon ever bagged a hog?
DeleteI wish. But no.
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DeleteThee characters would scare the crap out of me. we have wild hogs here but they keep well hidden.
ReplyDeleteGood heavens! What on earth must life be like for wild hogs in the middle of a harsh Albertan winter?
DeleteThat is a 'hunter's picture'. The pig is in the photograph foreground,the hunter way back. Men make an awfully big deal about size.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, they are a problem in some areas of the Australian outback. A friend was telling me that she was afraid of them. I told her that they were hunted here for food. There, they consider the meat inedible. I t really is quite good. I had wild boar once. Believe it or not, we were in a castle! It was a great night.
A castle? A castle in America? sure you weren't dreaming Debby?
DeleteStokesay Castle in Reading PA was designed after your Stokesay Castle. Mrs Heister did not like her husband's gift. (Can you imagine?)
DeleteFascinating.
DeleteWe too have a wild pig problem here and they can be dangerous too. Maybe not as bad as Texas though.
ReplyDeleteHow sad that the unique native fauna of Australia has to accommodate such greedy and destructive invaders.
DeleteOur dog Lucy is a breed specially designed for hunting these monsters. Dogs die doing it of course so we will keep Lucy as a pet and be happy we live in the suburbs.
ReplyDeleteSome Australians hunt and eat wild boar but it's not available commercially.
Andrew and Debby above also referred to Australian hogs. I never knew about this till today. So sad.
DeleteWild hogs are a serious problem in many states and if given a chance they will kill and eat people. That's a scary thought! There is a special trap that catches a large number of them at one time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4oNA8ViuwI
ReplyDeleteIf I was going to choose a way to die it would definitely not be being devoured by a wild hog! Thanks for the link Bonnie.
DeleteI don't want to die being devoured by ANYTHING, actually.
DeleteNot even George Clooney?
DeleteWe now have wild boar in the Forest of Dean, fairly harmless and keen to keep clear of humans. 60 were illicitly let free in the forest by a farmer in 2004, have bred impressively, 1500 I think. Bacon on the hoof!
ReplyDeleteThat farmer should be jailed. Our native wildlife has enough stress to deal with.
DeleteThis is the trouble with humans. They can't see it's not all about us. A hog is a hog. He does what hogs do. A bit like humans.
ReplyDeleteSoon I'll be renaming your blog The Death by Hooves Blog. First we had cows chasing the innocent, then you warned us of potential demise by pigs, now hogs. Next you may wish to turn our attention to a stampede of wildebeest (think "Lion King" - that scene is magnificent and has taught me it's best to run alongside those who won't stand still). Later we may graduate to elephants. Their legs being like tree trunks you wouldn't want one to accidentally stand on your toe. I know this because I once had the fortune of being made to ride on one of my favourite animals. I was only seven or eight so the elephant and I were mismatched in terms of size. Beauty and the Beast.
What is it with you, YP, and the Angel? Leaving aside both of your strange fascination of death by cow, the other day the Apple of my Eye wondered how best to escape a bear. Well, I said, don't climb up a tree. Once you have reached the top you'll have nowhere to go. And don't run.
Yes, Death Blog - my dear YP, you'll bring the pudding, I'll bring the gravy. Let's hope the beasts will serve us up on a silver platter and match the wine to our respective textures. Or maybe you'd prefer to be washed down with several pints of Bitter.
U
Me served up on a silver platter? No way! The meat would be far too tough and racy.
DeleteIt's not all about us as Ursula said.
DeleteD.H. Lawrence in his crazier moods wanted to see the world cleansed of humanity.
Only the animals and plants would be left.
Lawrence saw a bare hillside, not a walker in sight, *with a hare sitting up*.
I was confronted by a hog in the suburbs of Berlin one quiet Sunday morning many years ago. They are not pleasant creatures with which to share one's home patch.
ReplyDeleteHad you been at a drugs party Graham?
DeleteWe have a large population of hogs in Germany. In O.K.'s area, with the Black Forest so close, they often come out to the corn fields and cause considerable damage. But they want to eat like everyone else, and of course they will eat the corn when it is so nicely presented to them.
ReplyDeleteHunters have a quota here, in order to keeping the population of hogs at a sustainable number. Same goes for deer.
Hog meat is available at many a butcher here, and served in many restaurants this time of year. It is the best meat, as the animal has lived naturally, was not fed antibiotics or growth hormones, and has been roaming its territory all its live, developing good muscles and less fat than commercially raised pigs.
In fact, we shall be having hog this weekend.
I would love to try some roasted wild hog. There are wild hogs in the countyside near my brother's property near Pamiers, France but they are very secretive. I have never seen one.
DeleteI have heard of wild Boar living in Warsaw and we once met a family of free range pigs walking down the road in the New Forest on their own.
ReplyDeleteWere they going to market?
DeleteThey were depositing their pennies in the piggy bank🐖
DeleteThat's not how you spell penises Dave!
DeleteThe Wild Boar of Warsaw.
DeleteNow there's a children's picture book.
Text by Ursula and there are droves of good illustrators out there.
I think they're a problem in more places than just Texas. We had wild hogs in Florida too, which hunters used to keep somewhat in check, but they do breed readily and are quite adaptable. (And mean, as you pointed out -- although with all those hunters aiming guns at them, I can see why!)
ReplyDeleteRather than failing miserably to build a wall to keep out the Mexicans, Trump should have rounded up all the wild hogs. He could have corralled them in The Grand Canyon. "And who's gonna pay for the round up?...Yeah, the hogs are gonna pay!"
DeleteThe only hogs I have seen are when we cycled through the New Forest, they were lying in groups under the trees. You've opened my eyes with this post, never realised that hogs grew to that size.
ReplyDeleteBriony
x
Shoulda gone to Specsavers...oh, you did!
DeleteYP, you know that the boast is everything is bigger in Texas!
ReplyDeleteThere are wild boar in a heavily wooded area near here, although I've not actually seen one. Like the hogs, they are aggressive, and cause extensive damage and kill domestic animals. It can be quite dangerous - hunters are allowed to shoot them to keep their numbers down, but on occasions family pets have been killed by mistake.
Please do not venture into that heavily wooded area CG.
DeleteWe had wild boar roaming the chestnuts woods around our hamlet in France but they didn't cause us any problems. The hunters were probably more dangerous with their wild shooting than the pigs.
ReplyDeleteIn Texas, hunters do not have to try so hard and they do not guzzle a few carafes of merlot before setting off on their hunting expeditions.
DeleteWell, I am sure they are a nuisance and potentially dangerous and hunting is allowed to manage their numbers, but still, I admit to finding something about that photo a little disturbing.
ReplyDeleteI could never go hunting myself. I would hate to fire a gun - unless it was at people dropping litter.
DeleteFowk dropping big litter, especially drunks dropping takeaways, should be shot.
DeleteWith a water pistol filled with urine.
That's the only nasty remark I have ever made online.
It was pure evil John!
DeleteSad super liberal Britain where we promote anti-social behaviour, from vomiting outside to late night parties and pavement cycling at 40 M.P.H..
DeleteThe litter drunks should spend a month in the juggs, being fed half-rotten scraps from the streets. And their Legal Aid lawyers should spend one week in three cleaning up their shit, unpaid.
What do you call 50 lawyers who drowned in the River Clyde?
DeleteA start.
Your last photograph of those black, bristling creatures reminded me of a film directed by Mike Hodges: Pulp (1972) starring Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lizabeth Scott.
ReplyDeleteThere was a hunting scene near the end, men with guns shooting these wild pigs in woodland. And there is a murder. A disturbing movie.
Caine is brash, bombastic, but he does it with panache.
Rooney and Lizabeth Scott are very watchable.
That film is where the band Pulp (from Sheffield) got their name from.
DeleteI never knew about the link.
DeleteSheffield was in my mind a couple of years ago when I watched Margaret Drabble in the old BBC documentary series, One Pair of Eyes. You can see it now.
I was touched at the sight of the Salvation Army's brass band, playing carols in the snowy back streets of the city.
O Come All Ye Faithful.
I have heard of a man who sings this to his favourite pigs.
Could be the opening scene in my novel.
Free the hogs. Introduce them into the Sheffield suburbs.
ReplyDeleteIf the Sheffield Hogs prove too fertile in their breeding habits, send the over-spill to the West End of Glasgow. Will they share food with foxes?
DeleteLast night I saw the fox on my evening walk in Hyndland: I was near the Greek Orthodox Church, minding the frosty pavements.
The fox thought me a strange sight, stopping to gawp at Xmas trees in overhead apartments. Why do they always look back at us?
Because they are fans of that play by John Osborne - "Look Back in Anger" - originally titled "Look Back in Hyndland".
DeleteLook Back in Hyndland: A Greek drama about Osborne, an embittered fox who is done with the theatre, done with success, done with money, done with fame, done with politics, done with life, until he meets a lady fox called, er, let me think ... Ursula.
DeleteIs this a story about redemption? Nope. Redemption is an egocentric concept.
*It's not all about us foxes,* Ursula tells Osborne in fox syntax, *wild pigs share our habitat too, you know. And those bastard humans, hell rot them.*
I see that wee lassie who plays Princess Diana on Netflix doing Kiddy's Storytelling Hour. *Osborne and Ursula the Hyndland Foxes*
I think that is what scholars call "a flight of fancy". Reminds me of Icarus.
DeleteAh. Icarus. I kenned his father, Tasker.
ReplyDeleteAnd sadly as usual, the reason for some many wild hogs lies with humans who introduced a non native species and then hunters brought in wild eurasian boars for hunting which of course escaped and bred with pigs and then you have a wild pig problem. What a surprise.
ReplyDeleteThere are wild boar in the Forest of Dean. They cause problems when they go rooting around in people's gardens. The enterprising locals have found that, with the right seasoning, wild boar are very tasty.
ReplyDelete