From Saturday's AJC:
ROCKY FORD, Ga. — Bobby Smith Jr.'s family has been farming
land along the Ogeechee River in southeast Georgia since the
1940s. Since he was a boy, the 51-year-old Smith has been
hunting wild hogs that come up from the swampy banks of the
river to eat the peanut and corn crops. It used to be the
voracious feral pigs would come into the fields
periodically, and even then only on the river side of Ga. 17.
But these days, wild hogs are everywhere, not only on the
5,000 acres he farms with his son, but all over Screven
County and neighboring Jenkins County. Farmers and hunters
can't keep up with these eating machines.
"They are just constantly walking and eating and rooting,"
Smith said.
This Sunday, legislators, lobbyists and candidates will
belly up to tables piled with feral pig caught and fattened
in South Georgia just for the annual "Wild Hog Supper." It's
a pleasant way to mark the start the legislative session and
is pitched as a quaint tribute of the state's woodsy
traditions.
But while the politicos eat pig, wild pigs, by untold tens
of thousands, are eating up crops across Georgia, costing
farmers money, threatening endangered animals and spreading
diseases.
Forget images of Wilbur in Charlotte's Web or Miss Piggy
from the Muppets.
From Texas to Florida, smelly, grunting feral pigs are
eating anything and everything they can find, from turtle
eggs to garbage to rotting carcasses of other animals. They
have even been known to eat each other.
Despite occasional cannibalism, nature's garbage disposals
are multiplying — fast.
'Ecological threat'
Steve Ditchkoff, an associate professor of wildlife at
Auburn University, calls wild hogs "one of the greatest
ecological threats to the United States . . . and right now,
we have no way to control them."
Ditchkoff is organizing the 2006 National Conference on Wild
Pigs, to be held in Mobile this May. About 200 wildlife
biologists and others will come from across the country to
talk about the worrisome spread of wild hogs.
A 6-year-old report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
estimated there are as more than 1 million wild hogs in the
United States. Several wildlife biologists interviewed won't
venture a guess at the population today, but they say the
problem has gotten much worse.
It certainly has gotten worse in Georgia, with wild pigs now
roaming from the barrier islands to the Appalachian
Mountains.
Their presence is concentrated on the coast, where they were
first brought in by European explorers in the 1500s, and
along the streams and swamps of south and central Georgia.
Retired state wildlife biologist Kent Kammermeyer, who has
long studied wild hogs and is now a private consultant, said
wild hogs are smart and hide to avoid hunters, often only
eating at night. He would advise the state to further
liberalize the hunting regulations on public land.
"You might see a group of 10 out there in the woods and you
might shoot one, but those other nine are educated in what
to do next time around, and they can get really, really shy
and really difficult to hunt," Kammermeyer said.
Spread like kudzu
The Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, a group
of state and federal scientists at the University of
Georgia, track the spread of feral swine across the country.
Recent maps show the animals now live in almost every county
in Georgia, including parts of metro Atlanta. Farmers worry
about the wild hogs spreading diseases to their domestic
animals. Both pseudorabies and swine brucellosis have been
found in Georgia hogs. Pseudorabies can be fatal for dogs,
cattle, sheep and other farm animals. Swine brucellosis can
cause infertility among domestic pigs and infect humans if
they eat meat that is under-cooked or handled carelessly.
Because wild hogs are not native to Georgia, rules for
hunting them are more lax than for white-tailed deer,
bobwhite quails, turkeys, black bears and alligators. But
still the wild pig problem is growing. So last year, to help
control their numbers, the state began offering special
permits that allow hog hunters to use spotlights at night,
shoot at them from the trucks, and lure them in with bait.
Only about 300 of the special permits have been issued, some
to the same person, according to the state Department of
Natural Resources. The majority of the permits went to
landowners and hunting clubs in southwest and central west
Georgia.
But even with intense hunting, the animal is unlikely to
ever be wiped out.
Auburn's Ditchkoff said "Eradication may never be possible.
Take a look at kudzu."
Like kudzu, wild pigs spread quickly. By eight months old,
females are ready to reproduce. They can have two litters a
year with five to 10 piglets per litter.
Super-race of pigs
Experts and historians say America's earliest explorers,
including Christopher Columbus, brought Spanish pigs on
their ships to act as garbage disposals and provide a ready
meal when needed. When they landed, they would often leave
some hogs behind for their return journey. Some of those
pigs escaped into the wild.
Over the centuries, other types of pigs escaped into the
wild and interbred with the hogs, creating a super-race of
adaptable, fierce and tough species known in parts of South
Georgia as "swamp pig."
Wild pigs tend to look much like domesticated pigs, though
they can have more hair, and they are generally much leaner.
The males have tusks, which they are not afraid to use if
cornered.
"A wild hog is not scared of you," said Smith in Screven
County. "They'll fight."
Smith said he and his sons could easily kill 70 to 80 in a
winter season. They eat a lot of the them, usually making
sausage.
"Wild hog is great eating," he said.
Smith sets enormous traps, which he builds himself. The 16
feet by 10 feet contraptions, with a trapdoor, can hold most
swamp pigs, but he has seen males — some weighing more than
250 pounds — break out of the enclosures.
The largest wild hog ever killed was shot in June 2004 in
Alapaha, in south central Georgia. Labeled "Hogzilla" by the
plantation hunting guide who shot him, the animal was
confirmed by National Geographic experts to be 12 feet long
and 1,000 pounds.
Farmers' nemesis
Smith said he has never seen anything that big, but the hogs
in Screven County cause him enough trouble at one-fourth
that size. Just recently, he had a sow and several piglets
root up part of a peanut field. His friends shot 15 pigs in
two weeks. Driving out to the field, he pointed out rows
that weeks earlier had been dug up and ruined by the pigs.
"They'll ruin a good-size area in a few nights," he said.
Smith, a tall and broad man, said he will not get close to a
wild hog without a gun or bow and arrow. He said trapping
wild hogs is safer than stalking them, because the dirty,
smelly and ornery animals will charge you if they can.
His advice to hunters: "Aim for the head, or they will come
at you."
His advice to other farmers and the state wildlife
officials: Kill as many as you can as fast as you can.
"They can multiply on you in a hurry."
