How best to care for a wild pig?

In My Humble Opinion
41

All of the above stipulated; if you want to feed the pig, go to the library and check out a copy of Charlotte’s Web. you’ll find a couple of passages describing the tasty array of comestibles that find their way into Wilbur’s trough.

One presumes that now you’ve got Sam’s contact information, this shouldn’t be much of an issue in the future.

One thing I’ve found confusing in this thread: In the OP, you state both that the animal is (was) a sow and a boar. Is this really possible? Like saying that a horse is a mare and a stallion? Or that a chicken is a hen and a rooster?

42

Wild pigs are an aggressive cancer on the species diversity of the Hawaiian Islands. The need to be killed young or old. Pigs are incredibly prolific and amazingly hardy, even piglets barely off the teat can make out in the wild.

See this JAGER PRO™ Hog Trapping (20)- Wild Piglet Survival without Sow

43

“Boar” can mean both the original Eurasian wild pig from which domestic pigs are descended, or male hog. I suspect the OP was using it in the former sense. (Technically, this is not correct, since the wild pigs in Hawaii are feral and descended from domestic stock, rather than from wild stock. There are introduced Eurasian Wild Boars in the Great Smokies along with feral pigs.

44

That’s not all that original, given they’ve already released Nike’s.

45

Wow, interesting to get up in the morning and read the comments - you never know when a thread is going to gain traction around here.

Okay, two things to address:

  1. Referring to a “boar” - I guess I didn’t know the specifics of what that means. To me, a “pig” is a domesticated animal, even a cute one under the right circumstances, with a curly-ish tail, pinkish skin, reasonable-size eyes, and little hair. A “boar” is a wild thing, not particularly cute except in juvenile form, with a straight tail, blackish skin, tiny eyes, and covered in bristles. It seems my understanding/language use is a little incorrect. (I’ve also considered “wild” and “feral” as interchangeable terms, which I gather is also wrong.)

So to be more accurate, I guess I should stick with referring to the animals in this thread as “feral pigs,” although a male could be referred to as a “boar.” Is that right?

  1. Animal cruelty issue - well, a couple of things. First, the piglets can get in and out of the cage as it has a rather large opening at one end, big enough for the small ones to slip in and be with mom. At first I thought I was seeing things (“wait, I thought there was one sow in there…did one of the babies get trapped there with her?”) but now I realize what’s going on. She’s had a baby in there “visiting” at least a couple of times that I’ve noticed.

From what I’ve been able to observe this morning (and obviously, I ain’t no wildlife biologist), the three piglets spend part of their time with mom and also wander off on their own. Mom tends to be more agitated when they are visible to her but not right next to her. The piglets seem fairly mellow, actually. Right now they are sauntering away from mom and going under the house with no apparent care in the world. (But I shouldn’t anthropomorphize, I know.)

Hopefully Sam will know what to do. My guess is that if possible he’d like to get all four of them at once, but of course that is dependent on him arriving when the piglets are here, and I imagine they might run off when he comes. He’s probably encountered similar situations before, given how rampant the pig population h as gotten.

Second, I’m not happy about mom being trapped/killed while she’s still got young piglets, and I hope we can resolve it as kindly as possible, but as others have said (and skdo23, I appreciate you trying to be open-minded about the facts) the pigs are a real problem here, and unfortunately doing pig control requires a little bit of “nature red in tooth and claw” acceptance along with understanding that the pigs are very damaging to the environment. And as Colibri points out, it’s not like they were guaranteed an idyllic life if they weren’t trapped. They get hit by cars, for example; we had a dead pig on the road outside our house just a couple days ago.

One last thing - the joke about pumas and predators: my husband ordered some “crystallized mountain lion pee” after reading on line that some guy here swears by it. At some point we may use it, but if it does discourage the pigs it only solves our problem by displacing the pigs to somewhere else. Also it has to be re-spread every time it rains, which for us is…constantly (our house is smack-dab in the middle of the dark blue spot, I kid you not.)

46

So these pigs are delicious? I seem to recall reading that one of the problems regarding the invasive feral hog problem in Texas is that they don’t taste very good, so there’s less incentive to hunt them for food (or sale as such). What makes the island pig tastier than the mainland ones?

47

That’s correct. Feral pigs in some places are called “razorbacks.”

48

800 years? That seems like a long time for them to become acclimated to the environment. How are they still pests?

49

Could it be how they’re prepared? Native Hawaiians have been eating them for centuries and maybe they’ve come up with ways to make them taste good. Maybe Texans should look at the Hawaiians’ preparation and cooking methods.

Or maybe it’s the particular genetic strains in Texas vs Hawaii, or maybe it’s the diet available to the pigs.

50

I am also curious about this. They have only become pests around here fairly recently. They were not a problem in our neighborhood in 2002, when we bought our property.

But the invasive species around here seem to be using a Trump Distraction Strategy. Since 2002, for a while everyone was fussed about the African Tulip trees (aka “trash trees”) and some sort of vine. Those are still around (I can see a trash tree directly in my line of sight out the window now - at least it’s very pretty) but people don’t seem to bother talking about them any more. Next, it was the coqui frogs - I dunno how much pesticide was sprayed and how much ground cover hacked away to control them, but it didn’t work and now they are just part of the landscape. And now, it’s the PIGS.

Who knows what it will be next. Not brown tree snakes, I hope.

51

Apparently. I’ve eaten a lot of “kalua pig” here, but only in restaurants and from grocery stores (Costco sells the stuff in bulk). So if I get some from Sam, it will be the first time I’ve had it “homemade,” so to speak. I promise to report back on how it tastes.

52

From here:

53

Thanks, Colibri - very helpful info.

It reminds me of the donkey situation. When you drive around on the west side of the island there are still warning signs for donkey crossings, but the donkeys are pretty much gone. Apparently a wild population got started when people who had been using donkeys for farm labor switched to machines and released them into the wild.

I’m not sure how environmentally destructive they were, but I’ve been told that when there was a fatal auto accident involving donkeys and tourists, that was the final straw. A hugely unreliable source told me that the donkeys were herded, using helicopters, and when they were rounded up they were sent to Los Vegas.

I know that sounds dubious in the extreme, but the LV part of the story is more credible than you might think. Fun fact: Hawaiians LURVE Los Vegas and there are always package deals to go there.

54

Hmm…I’d probably say make as much bacon out of it as possible. :slight_smile:

ETA: Oops! I misread the thread title. :o

55

I still see the donkeys there when we visit. They seem to be mostly picking out a living on the lava fields south of Kona.

Hard to imagine anyone transporting them to Las Vegas. More likely to China, where donkey is an ingredient in a variety of folk medicine and even teas.

56

Apparently there is a problem with radioactive feral pigs in Fukushima. Disposing of the bodies is another headache.

57

There are radioactive boars in Germanyand the Czech Republic as a result of radiation from Chernobyl.

58

This evening Sam came to take away the second sow. Her three piglets were lounging nearby when he arrived. I watched the ensuing drama unfold - all it needed was a narration by Marlin Perkins (if you don’t get the reference, never mind - it’s for us old folks).

Sam is definitely a “pig whisperer” as none of the four pigs seemed particularly concerned by his presence. He brought out buckets of fruit and proceeded to feed all four of them for a few minutes. He then got his gun and calmly shot the sow while her piglets were nearby.

Well. I’d always heard that pigs were smart, but if these three babies are smart, they are also sociopaths. While mama went through her death throes, the babies fought over bananas, completely unconcerned by the fact mama was dying a few feet away. Swine!

Sam hauled off the carcass to his pick-up truck, then proceeded to sit calmly, feeding the babies tasty fruits. His goal was to trap them in the cage, but they eventually tired of all the goodies he was feeding them, and wandered off without getting trapped.

Sam and I then chatted for a while, and he gave me some tips for how I might be able to trap the three piglets (though I warned him that my pig trapping skills are far inferior to his). His feeling was that they are old enough to survive just fine without mom, although they’ll have to up their game a little bit.

If I can catch the piglets, his plan is to take them to a farm where they can have an enjoyable life until they are big enough to be eaten. We talked about animal cruelty issues - his comment was, “if you want to see cruelty, look at how commercial pork is raised. These pigs have a much better deal.”

We also talked about what breed of pig these were. He says they are a cross between the original pigs brought by the ancient Hawaiians, and more recently escaped domestic varieties. According to him there is also a new breed, “Russians,” that has gone wild and is breeding with other pigs (no Russian in the pigs we were dealing with). He says the Russians are more aggressive.

I asked him about the taste of the feral pigs, and he said they are pretty good, but leaner than the stuff you buy in the store.

I also asked him how long the pigs had been a problem, and his answer was interesting: “they aren’t a problem, they just have to be controlled.” I can see how he’d feel that way, if he can supplement his income and food supply by being one of the controllers.

All in all, it was interesting and reassuring to hear Sam’s comments. It seems the piglets will be okay, one way or another.

59

I’m curious why he didn’t shoot the piglets. My cynical side says that he isn’t actually worried about the damage they do to the ecosystem. They are more valuable as full grown pigs. Hmmm.

The donkey situation is supposedly done with.

60

I suspect that’s right, no cynicism required, just an understanding of Sam’s role in all of this. He wants pigs for food. We ( rather our tenants, who contacted him, but we agree) want pigs off our property. Since there is a shared interest in pig removal, it works - for grown-up pigs.

If we can trap the piglets, everyone will be happy. Of course, that’s a big “if.”