When you think of feral hogs, you think of the good ole boy southern states where a culture has grown up around hunting the rogue pigs.

Remember the 1,100-pound "Hogzilla" shot in a Georgia swamp a couple years ago?

Rumors began circulating a year or two ago that hogs that had escaped from commercial hunting preserves were creating little wild piggy families in a few spots in Penn's Woods.

But an earnest investigation over the last several months has reached the shocking conclusion that there are as many as 3,000 tusked feral hogs in perhaps 15 counties — and growing fast.

The discovery bowled over everyone from the Pennsylvania Game Commission to hunters to worried pork producers and the state Department of Agriculture.

Now, state and federal officials are scrambling to snuff out the uprising.

They warn of major damage to the environment and farmers' crops as the pigs wallow and root around.

An unbridled large pig population on the loose would harm all forms of native Pennsylvania wildlife as the pigs eat the same foods as deer, turkeys, bears and non-game species, and destroy wildlife habitat.

Glass, who grew up in Texas, which has the nation's highest feral hog population, has seen firsthand the damage.

"They have studied and studied and wondered what happened to the quail. Hogs eat them," he said.

Hogs have been known to also kill turkeys, grouse and fawn deer. 

Wild hogs can carry 30 viral and bacterial diseases, though none of the 20 hogs tested so far in the study has turned up any infectious diseases.

That petrifies Pennsylvania's domestic pork industry, 10th-largest in the nation with an annual economic impact of nearly $241 million .

"I think I can safely speak for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture that we don't want feral swine in Pennsylvania," says Dr. David R. Griswold, assistant director of the agency's Bureau of Animal Health and Diagnostic Services.

"I don't think the sportsmen want it, even though they think they might at this point," he adds.

 

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"At first we felt like we were looking for a needle in a haystack," says Harris Glass of the federal Wildlife Services of the search-for-pigs study launched by his agency and the state agriculture department. The Pennsylvania Pork Producers Council helped provide funding.

"It was kind of shocking what we've stumbled across," says Glass. "It's a lot like a ticking bomb."

Breeding populations of hogs were found in Bedford, Bradford, Butler, Cambria and Tioga counties — in areas near pig-hunting operations.

An estimated 1,000 wild pigs are living in the woods of Cambria-Bedford counties and more than 200 have been shot there by hunters this winter, Glass reports.

The nearest reports of wild hogs to Lancaster County are from Montgomery County. But officials are worried about escapes from hog-hunting operations and there is an unfenced one on an island in the Susquehanna River in Conoy Township.

One reason officials fear the wild hog population could explode so quickly is the prolific nature of the beasts.

 They can produce litters of eight to 12 young twice a year. Not even bears and coyotes are likely to prey on a tusked pig of any size so their only predators would likely be man, officials point out.

 

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Feral hogs have been running free in North America since the early 16th century, when Spanish explorers introduced them. Additional varieties were imported in more recent times by hunting preserves and for agriculture.

The hogs running around Pennsylvania may be a mishmash of escaped domestic pigs, Eurasian wild boars, descendants of Asian and European  hogs, or hybrids of these species.

Wild hogs have expanded immensely in recent years and an estimated 4 million may now be found in at least 39 states.

Officials say Pennsylvania's population emanates from animals escaping from preserves, found in at least 15 counties.

Some of the preserves are unfenced. Hogs are so powerful they can lift up wire fences in others.

  

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Resistance to squashing the wild hog population could come from hunters, some of whom are already reveling in an unexpected new hunting opportunity.

Word of the new bounty has spread like wildfire among Pennsylvania's hunting fraternity.

"It's a Wild West mentality," says Glass. "People get out of cars and walk around looking for them. It's just a feeding frenzy."

The hunting, which was encouraged by the Game Commission a few months ago, has been found to be detrimental to the study's efforts to trap hogs.

More importantly, a coordinated move to rein in the population would actually be hindered by hunting as the wild hogs are scattered even farther through Pennsylvania and are educated about avoiding humans, officials warn.

"Hunters are now killing a few, but dispersing the rest," observes Griswold.

That's what prompted Kansas recently to ban hunting of wild hogs. Instead, a campaign of aerial shooting and trapping is under way to try to uproot the invaders.

Since feral hogs are not considered a game animal in Pennsylvania, they are not regulated by the Game Commission and may be hunted 365 days a year, no limits.

Free bacon and a challenging new form of hunting has its appeal.

 But state and federal officials, as well as the Pennsylvania Game Commission, hope to convince everyone that wild hogs rooted here is in no one's best interest.

"Eradication of feral hogs in the Commonwealth is the goal," the Game Commission stated recently.

Griswold says he doubts that could ever be accomplished, only control.

He stresses there are no plans to shut down commercial hog-hunting operations in Pennsylvania and he doubts a ban on hunting wild hogs is in the cards.

Rather, he says, a balance will be sought so that trapping operations can proceed without disturbance in key areas, because whole families of pigs can be removed that way.

A newly formed, public-private  Pennsylvania Feral Hog Task Force will meet later this month and is expected to propose some initial steps to combat the menace.

One example: have preserves certify that any hogs brought into the state are free of disease.

"Look at the states that missed their opportunity, like Texas," suggests Griswold.

"They're paying a terrible price — $52 million in agriculture losses each year."

Glass also thinks time is of the essence, especially with hunters inadvertently spreading the problem like the wind.

"It's not a runaway train yet, but if this kind of hunting pressure is continued on them, it is gonna be a runaway train."