Maggie's Farm

This photo of a Maggie's Farm buddy with a big Texas pig, from a post last summer, elicited a comment from a reader saying that they had them in Wisconsin. Wisconsin? That was news to me. I thought "razorbacks" were more of a Southern and Western thing.

Happily, they have not invaded New England yet.

I knew about Texas, California, etc., and I checked his link. Yup. They are now found in 23 states. They are basically wild domestic pigs, but, depending on their location, the urban legend is that they may have some "Russian Boar" blood from game farms mixed in - but the domestic pig and the wild European boar are the same species: Sus scrofa. When breeding wild, feral pigs devolve into their natural form and habits. Unlike wild horses, they attract little sympathy, and they are not cute.

In many areas of Europe, boar is extinct or endangered. In the US, these adaptable invaders are spreading fast, which is bad for forests but fun for hunters.

Omnivorous, destructive of their habitat by aggressive rooting with their snouts, raising up to 4 litters per year, and ranging from 70-400 pounds in adulthood, these hardy, non-native critters are environmental destructos from hell. And their only real predator, to keep their numbers in any control, is man.

To make things more difficult, their shoulders, where you might wish to place a bullet, have very dense tissue which is difficult to penetrate. They are also potentially dangerous beasts who use their tusks as swords: they can easily kill a dog or seriously damage a human. On the plus side, they are highly edible.

Because most states have an open season on pig, hog hunting is increasingly popular - and environmentally necessary - whether with bow, shotgun, rifle (or even handgun, for the very brave or reckless).

Here's a piece on boar hunting in Ohio. Here's one from California.