Feral pigs are smelly, aggressive and threatening. And their numbers are growing in South Mississippi.
Boars and sows are coming into urban neighborhoods, causing damage in cities and increasing erosion the banks of the Pascagoula River, the last large free-flowing river in the lower 48 states.
Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would get a call a week, but now it gets almost a call a day, said Scott Alls, a district supervisor for nuisance animals.
"Pigs are the big topic nowadays with all the damage they do," Alls said. "They're not native. Kind of like Cogongrass, they take over."
Rep. Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, has helped introduce a bill in the state Legislature to add feral hogs to the state beaver control program. And Sen. Michael Watson, R-Pascagoula, noted on Facebook he hopes such legislation would help the problem along the Pascagoula River.
In groups, the animals destroy habitat and can uproot hundreds of acres of sensitive bottomland as they forage for roots and grubs.
Mark LaSalle, director of the Pascagoula River Audubon Center in Moss Point, said the pigs tear up the river's banks as well, escalating erosion.
City pigs
"But we've had pig damage reported in the city limits of Gulfport, in the city of Gautier," Alls said Thursday. "We've had them in Bay St. Louis. At the Hollywood Casino, we've had pig issues there. Stennis Space Center has a pig problem. Diamondhead is having issues with pigs right now."
He said the pigs in Diamondhead have been coming into yards, tearing into lawns searching for grubs. They are also damaging ditches and rights of way, he said.
"It's widespread," he said, citing cases in Petal and Purvis.
"It's not unique to South Mississippi, it's statewide," he said, adding there also has been national attention given to pig issues.
Twenty years ago, feral pigs were in about 10 states, he said. Now they are in 40.
Open season
Property owners are allowed to shoot them on their properties. Public land is a little tricky. Hunters can shoot them during any hunting season with whatever weapon is legal for the animal that is in season. For example, they could use a .22-caliber during squirrel season.
And on the 13,500 acres of the Ward Bayou Wildlife Management Area east of Vancleave along the Pascagoula River in 2012, managers calculated hunters killed 350 to 400 or more feral pigs during the six months of the various hunting seasons.
McCoy's Swamp Tours on the Pascagoula River often spots wild hogs along the river's banks. The animals can swim and they like the soft, moist ground of the bottomland hardwood forests in the river basin.
These feral pigs reproduce often, beginning at a young age. Wildlife experts estimate they would have to kill or capture 80 percent of the pigs a year to keep the population from growing.
Shrewd, mean adversary
And they're smart. If they've been trapped by a corral, for example, and get away, they learn from the experience and avoid corrals in the future. They also avoid coming out in the day during hunting seasons.
LaSalle said he encountered a large hog last summer while working on warbler boxes on Ward Bayou near Vancleave.
"Walking along the banks of the bayou, we noticed signs of a hog," he said. "It looks like someone has plowed the ground, like a herd of cattle has come through. And you see droppings as well.
"It was late, about 6 p.m. I surprised one. It was asleep, maybe 50 feet away," he said. "I'm on the bank, and here's the hog. He woke up, snorted and I snorted back at him and he went one way and I went another."
He said he was lucky he didn't have to "go swimming" to avoid it.
"Luckily, it was only one," he said. "I advise people to 'get yourself a stick and go in the opposite direction,' because those things are mean."
Read more here:
http://www.sunherald.com/2013/02/21/4483275/wild-pigs-a-growing-problem-in.html#storylink=cpy
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