Canadian super-pigs about to invade the US. Super-pigs are ferals crossbred with domestic swine. They have the destructiveness of ferals combined with breeding as fast as domestic.
I guess they still haven’t forgiven us for losing the Pig War.
I could be smug about living on an island in the Pacific, so Canadian pigs won’t reach us, but it’s too late. We already have a major pig problem on Hawai’i Island, and it’s the same deal - a cross between wild and domesticated pigs. They haven’t been around our property for a while, but there have been times when our entire yard has been nothing but snouted up turf.
I think they’re nomadic - they took what they could from our neighborhood and moved on. Now that the land has healed (and all sorts of delicious new things have been planted), they’ll be back.
Saw that report. I thought the pigs were already here. We’ve been invaded and have an active kill/burn or bury program in our county.
Too late to avoid feral pigs by something like 15 centuries…
They only started being a problem in the last 5-10 years. Before that there were not a lot of ferals on the loose.
why not make them available for “harvest” (iow: shooting them)?
They’re not edible around here. Diseased and carrying vermin no one wants.
A few years back I was looking through the hunting regulations for Arkansas, and it mentioned that you could shoot a pig that had been out in the wild for at least three days. Which prompted me to ask how I was supposed to know it had been in the wild for at least three days? Asking the pig did not seem like an option.
According to the CDC, feral hogs are okay to eat so long as you use safe field dressing techniques and follow basic food safety tips. I think brucellosis is the one to worry about though as you can get it just by coming into contact with the pig.
We eat them here. We have pig traps (that rarely catch anything) and if there’s a pig inside, we can call someone to shoot the pig and haul it away. You can negotiate a price if you want the meat - a few years ago I paid $20 for a big batch of pork from a pig shot in our front yard.
There is also the roadkill option.
I invite you to come look at them. The smell alone is akin to rotten flesh.
We’ve been warned of prion diseases and rabies and pseudo-rabies.
The skin parasites are just awful.
They are disgusting and unappetizing.
Feral hogs are a very popular game animal in many of the areas of the US where they are rampant. In many states there is a bounty on them. IOW the government will pay you $X per dead animal you turn in.
But, like rabbits, they breed far faster than even 'Murricah’s heavily armed and very numerous rednecks can possibly kill them.
Ours are pretty nice on that front. Nonetheless, when I had boar meat I did some elaborate prep to reduce the gaminess (I think the meat soaked in a vinegar and water solution in a cooler, changed regularly, for 48 hours or so).
There are a couple of YouTube channels I watch in which folks make a business of catching wild pigs. They are more ugly than possums, and I thought those looked bad.
Bite your typing fingers. Possums are cuties. Just adorbs.
There is a difference between wild hog and feral invasive hog.
(I admit they may be mixing it up in the wild)
You have a program to bury the ferals alive? 
Just what the world needs now, an environmental incentive for more and more heavily armed 'mericans.
They pretty much gotta be dead before you bury. They’d dig their way out.
QFT. Those things are both strong and ornery.
“Look! There in the sty! It’s a turd! It’s some grain! No, it’s Super-Pig.”
Hey, this stuff writes itself.
Funny 