Monday, April 27, 2009

Windmill Country - Feral Hogs

In 20 years, the feral hog population has grown to more than 2 million head across Texas and has wreaked havoc on property, livestock, crops, pastures and more recently, city parks and golf courses. "The wild hogs are as prolific as cockroaches, destructive as rats and as surly as badgers. "The dirt-slingin' critters roam free in Texas, rooting up pastures and fences, wallowing in creekbeds and gorging themselves on crops and gardens," said Dr. Bob Hillman, Texas' state veterinarian. The female hogs have litters of eight and 12 pigs at a time, several times per year. They can double their population in an area in four months, Aubrey Lange told me over lunch recently. Hunters can't make a dent in their numbers. Lange, who operates Lange Helicopters from Mertzon with his son Kyle, has hunted the wild hogs and coyotes for the famous Pitchfork Ranch near Guthrie in King County and the San Angelo-based Sheep & Goat Predator Management Board. "From 1993-2003, the damage from feral hogs that was reported to AgriLife Extension's Wildlife Services increased an average of 105 percent per year," said Ken Cearley, Extension wildlife management specialist in Canyon. "The price tag for that damage now is conservatively estimated to be about $52 million per year." Former Gov. Dolph Briscoe, who at one time ran several thousand head of Angora goats and sheep on his ranch near Uvalde, told me a few years ago that feral hogs put the family ranch out of the goat and sheep business. "They ate everything, including hoofs and horns, and left little evidence of the animals," he said...San Angelo Standard Times

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