Here, Piggy Piggy

Who knew the nutria, Louisiana’s big-toothed rodent, would be upstaged by the feral hog as nuisance animal number one? Wild hogs can look like Godzilla compared to the nutria, especially the pigs that weigh seven hundred pounds or more. Whatever name you call these mammals—feral hogs, wild pigs, feral swine, or wild boars—Sus scrofa are big, bad, and everywhere. 

Swine population estimates for the United States are at six million. Of those, 500,000 live in Louisiana. They are found in all sixty-four parishes and have the ability to adapt to all of Louisiana’s diverse habitats. These slabs of would-be bacon are definitely out of control.

Wild pigs are not native to Louisiana or the United States. They are an Old World species native to northern and central Europe. They were introduced to the U.S. mainland by Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto in the 1500s as domestic stock. Later, the Eurasian boar was introduced into the states for hunting purposes. These boars escaped from their hunting pens and interbred with domestic pigs. Today many different swine hybrids exist. 

Part of the reason the feral pig numbers have exploded is that there are no natural predators in Louisiana to keep the population in check, and they have a fast reproductive rate. A female hog can start reproducing as early as six months of age, though most become reproductively active between eight and ten months. They can have two litters per year with up to fourteen young per litter. Females and their young live in groups called sounders, and, if encountered while with their piglets, the females can become aggressive. Even though the females don’t have tusks, their canines are sharp—and they will charge and bite. 

Adult males are solitary except during breeding season. The males have upper tusks (2.4–4.7 inches long) that curve upwards and can be used for defense, as digging tools, or to mark trees within their territory. If threatened, the male will lower its head and charge, thrusting its tusks upward once it’s reached its target to slash through flesh. Their tusks can be lethal. 

Pigs may be seen at any time of day, although they are predominantly nocturnal with the majority of their movement occurring at night. This is especially true during times of increased human activity such as hunting season. 

With a voracious appetite, they will eat just about anything; their diet includes grasses, roots, nuts, berries, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and carrion. Feral pigs also eat livestock, fawn deer, and the young of many species. In certain areas these swine have negatively impacted nesting success for bobwhite quail and wild turkeys. 

Damage from hogs can be seen with the naked eye. Similar to an armadillo, they use their snout to root around in the ground, loosening the soil to uproot vegetation. This destructive habit ruins crops, increases erosion, and generally wreaks havoc on the environment. Hogs eat planted and naturally regenerating forest seedlings and have even been credited with rooting up levees. All considered, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the cost of feral hog damage to hover around $1.5 billion a year nationwide. 

Feral pigs carry diseases … lots of them: brucellosis, pseudorabies, trichinosis, and leptospirosis. Brucellosis cases have been documented in Louisiana hunters by the Centers for Disease Control. Hunters contract the disease while dressing their kill; they get bacteremic swine blood or bodily fluids into sores, open wounds, or mucous membranes. Leptospirosis is considered the number one cause of abortions in cattle.

Their disease-riddled bodies account for one reason that more hunters aren’t shooting feral hogs for salt pork or cochons de lait. And while hunters do find them quite palatable, meat from the mature boars can have a very strong, offensive taste. 

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) veterinarian Jim LaCour says that seventy-five percent of Louisiana’s feral pigs need to be removed every year to keep the population static. During the 2012—13 hunting season, 161,000 feral hogs were killed by hunters, a figure that only accounts for thirty-two percent of the population (though this figure doesn’t include pigs taken by farmers or professional trappers). These are frightening statistics.

So, what is the solution? Hunters can harvest these “outlaw quadrupeds,” as LDWF calls them,  year-round on private land by almost any means, including gunshot, trapping, snaring, and with the aid of dogs. Unfortunately, the pigs often become wary of traps quickly.

Another method used to eliminate hogs is through aerial control by helicopter. The best time is in March before the trees leaf out and the marsh grass grows back, when the sounders can be easily spotted.

Sodium nitrite is being researched as a potential control method: when ingested, the compound keeps the hogs’ red blood cells from receiving oxygen; if the pigs eat enough, they essentially experience death by carbon dioxide poisoning. Dropping the bait off in areas of high density would attract the pigs, but studies aren’t sure how the compound would impact other species such as raccoons and bears. 

Most exotic species introduced into non-native environments eventually cause ecological trouble. The feral pig is no different. James Gill, newspaper columnist at The Advocate, suggested we employ SWAT teams, like former Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee did when the nutria population swelled out of control. Maybe LDWF can put a bounty on the pig’s tail, like they did nutria, to encourage culling. (Though this experiment failed miserably in Ft. Benning, Georgia, when people claimed the bounty with domestic pig tails obtained from local slaughterhouses.) 

Or we can simply embrace a new, Louisiana version of the “Three Little Pigs,” replacing the wolf with a wild boar, blowing down whatever gets in its hairy way.