Feral Hogs Are Invading Yankeeland. Northern
Friends, Here’s What You Need to Know.
Texas Monthly,
by
Wes Ferguson
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
1/2/2020 10:13:09 AM
Dear Yankee,
The South has fallen. Apparently so has Canada. Now an invading army of feral hogs is threatening to come for you. Trust us, we’ve seen the worst down here in Texas. When the hogs arrive up North, you’re in for a porky horror show. Wild pigs are rapacious. Rooting and marauding day and night, they can and will destroy your lawn, your crops, the fairways of your local golf course, and whatever else they run across. Feral hogs were blamed for the recent death of a woman from Liberty.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
JunkYardDog 1/2/2020 10:20:18 AM (No. 276404)
Can they swim across rivers? Could they cross the Hudson River into New England?
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
HPmatt 1/2/2020 10:21:42 AM (No. 276405)
As every ‘southern’ ag landowner knows, you need a varmint gun, but rather than possums or wild dogs, now you need something bigger - like a 223 ‘Assault’ rifle....
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
wildcat1 1/2/2020 10:51:54 AM (No. 276434)
They are legal to hunt here in Kansas, any time, no liscence needed. I think they can even be hunted from a plane or helicopter.
So far, we have been able to keep them mostly in Oklahoma.
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 1/2/2020 10:56:48 AM (No. 276438)
How well do hogs hold up in below freezing, below zero weather? My guess is fine.
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
curious1 1/2/2020 10:56:49 AM (No. 276439)
Bacon! It's a meal!
9 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
winmag 1/2/2020 10:58:47 AM (No. 276443)
The AR15 platform is the perfect medicine for getting rid of these hogs.
11 people like this.
Here in Middle Georgia, my wife drives a school bus. She’s had children unable to get on the bus for being chased back in their homes by feral hogs...
9 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Grounded 1/2/2020 11:30:24 AM (No. 276468)
Pork: The other white meat. If those hogs are as smart as advertised, they will stay way away from D.C. where pork is on every politicians' menu every day.
18 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
FLCracker 1/2/2020 11:40:10 AM (No. 276481)
Hogs, feral or not, are a danger. Smarter than a dog, larger than a wolf. Like the bear and the human, they'll eat anything they can eat. ("Omnivore", just another word for "scavenger.")
We're not talking "Charlotte's Web" here; we're talking "Ole Yeller." And what did the heros and demi-gods in Greek and Celtic myths hunt to prove they were manly men?
9 people like this.
#1, why swim? There’s plenty of bridges. But yeah, they can also swim.
6 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
hurricanegirl 1/2/2020 12:00:32 PM (No. 276498)
#4: How well do hogs handle freezing temps? You've got to be joking, right?
You do know that hogs have built-in insulation, correct? And lots of it, too!
As for feral hogs invading Yankeeland, I thought they were already there--in D.C. to be specific.
16 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
texaspast 1/2/2020 12:12:18 PM (No. 276516)
#9, I think you meant "Savage Sam', the sequel to Old Yeller - and a much more enjoyable book for a boy, too. It was Sam the dog that got cut up by the wild hogs. Old Yeller and Savage Sam were my favorite books when I was a kid, and read them so much I practically memorized them, which is why I still remember the stories well. Savage Sam isn't quite politically correct now, (Little Arliss biting the Indian's ear off, for example) but both books should be on any boy's reading list (especially a Texas boy) .
8 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Clinger 1/2/2020 12:13:18 PM (No. 276517)
I'm no expert but I think I'd rather have something a but more substantial than an overgrown .22 (.223) despite the delivery platform.
I'll stick with the M1 Garand with the added benefit of keeping unwanted visitors off my lawn.
Actually I'd probably go with my sporterized scoped 8mm Mauser.
4 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 1/2/2020 2:09:28 PM (No. 276592)
These are not native American feral hogs, but a mixed breed with "Siberian Boar" that get very big and very mean. The males are extremely smart, and have a harem of females which forage for food along with the piglets, while he hides out in the event they get captured, or killed. The story is that someone imported them from Russia in the 1970's to be hunted on a private game preserve in Alabama, but they got away and began breeding with the American wild hog, thereby landing us in the situation we now have.
Here's a representative example:
https://sciboarhunter.com/russian-boar-hunting-siberian-snow-hunts/
In Texas it's open season year round on them.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
DVC 1/2/2020 3:11:47 PM (No. 276650)
I was in northern Fla a month ago and spent some time canoeing. We went ashore and found a piece of nice wilderness just roto-tilled, literally. About 3 acres of land in a beautiful forest just uprooted, turned upside down for about 8-12 inches deep. Wild hogs.
Shoot every one you see, people. They are the ultimate vermin.
9 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
DVC 1/2/2020 3:12:39 PM (No. 276653)
#3, it isn't hunting, it is extermination that is needed.
5 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Geoman 1/2/2020 3:37:04 PM (No. 276668)
On my modest spread in ground-zero rural East Texas, the feral hog invasion has accelerated in recent years. My anti-hog weapon of choice, while on my own property is a plain, old-fashioned lever-action Marlin 30-30, commonly referred to as a saddle gun. A few months ago, while driving to town on a county road, I couldn't avoid running over one in my truck. I stopped to asses damage, as colliding with a big hog often completely totals vehicles my county. There was no visible damage because she ran under my rear tire, lifting my heavy diesel a few feet in the air. I noticed the hog stirring in the ditch but the only firearm I had available was a small .380 pistol, which I figured might be better than nothing and I didn't want the wounded hog to suffer. As can be predicted the .380 round had no effect on the top of the skull, other than to anger her and get her coming my way along the roadway. Being familiar with wild hogs, I got down in the ditch and let her come close such that I got a shot off up from under her lower jaw, where the bottom of the skull is rather thin. She never even twitched after that but I wouldn't recommend that method for dispatching a wounded hog. Later, when I drove back home, the dead hog had already been partially devoured by her brethren, which is one reason why I don't eat feral hog meat. I've found that a safe and sure method of dispatching a wild hog at close range is the use of a 12 ga shotgun firing 1 oz slugs. The energy transfer is sufficient to stop even the largest hogs, with no need for follow-up.
11 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
FLCracker 1/2/2020 4:15:39 PM (No. 276699)
#9, had to be the movie "Ole Yeller" (the first movie I saw in a theater); I never read the books. I know there is a scene in there about a boy falling into a sounder and being rescued by the dog. (Because, as I was told by my hog-raising cousins at age six, "Don't you fall into where those hogs are. Those hogs will eat you up." Spoken in a north Florida drawl that moved at the speed of molasses.)
#15, 16: The feral hogs of Florida are descendants of food-on-the-trotter that the Spanish explorers brought with them. My grandpa would hunt them accompanied by two dogs.
5 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
cor-vet 1/2/2020 5:01:31 PM (No. 276731)
At night, with a green light and an AR in .300 blackout!
1 person likes this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
chumley 1/2/2020 6:00:01 PM (No. 276763)
They're already here in WV. I saw a herd at the mall on prom night, in high heels and lipstick.
8 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Foghorn 1/2/2020 8:08:58 PM (No. 276861)
I missred read the headline. I thought it said 'federal hogs' invade yankeeland.
1 person likes this.
#22 When I spit all over my keyboard, the cat in my lap spooked and leaped.
I saw the back side of one yesterday at the radiology center in heels. Whoa.
Feral hogs will tear up not only your yard in a hurry, but most of the neighborhood.
0 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
ladydawgfan 1/3/2020 3:55:21 AM (No. 277135)
Didn't a herd of them go rampaging through a mall in Connecticut last week??
0 people like this.
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