- As cities and suburbs swallow up more land, feral hogs are becoming an urban nuisance.
- Eradication methods such as shooting feral hogs from helicopters don't lend themselves to a more urban setting. So police departments and animal-control officers are trying new techniques, methodically tracking the marauders' hoofprints and setting up night-vision cameras to monitor their movements.
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As cities and suburbs swallow up more land, feral hogs are becoming an urban nuisance.
Eradication methods common in rural Texas, such as shooting feral pigs from helicopters, don't lend themselves to a more urban setting. So police departments and animal-control officers are trying new techniques, methodically tracking the marauders' hoofprints and setting up night-vision cameras to monitor their movements.
Texas claims to have about as many wild hogs as the rest of the nation combined. Experts put the pig count at 2 million and growing, since a wild sow can deliver anywhere from 4 to 20 piglets in a year. State officials estimate that pigs cause $400 million a year in property damage.
See Ana Campoy’s WSJ article for more.
