Forget giant rats or pizza-loving, petting zoo poseurs: feral boars are just (300) miles away in sleepy Peru, New York, feasting on apples and other crops and copulating like, well, pigs that start having sex at the age of six months. “There’s a real sense of urgency,” Ed Reed, a biologist at the DEC tells the Times. “Once the pigs get established, they are very difficult to eradicate completely.” When will Governor Cuomo follow Texas' lead and allow us to kill them with automatic weapons from helicopters?
In addition to weighing as much as 300 pounds and having sharp tusks, the pigs can be quite ornery towards humans, when they even encounter them. Feral hogs are usually most active at night, and trapping or hunting them is a challenge.
The DEC is using circular traps (because hogs will climb on each other to escape when cornered) and must stock them with Jell-O powder and donuts for weeks, waiting for the pigs to become acclimated enough so that they can finally set trip wires. “I’ve never worked with an animal this smart,” Reed said.
Nationally there are 5 million feral hogs, though New York has a smaller population than most states in part due to the cold. "They’ll eat the understory in a forest and dig up plants by rooting the ground for insects and roots," Reed said. "They compete with wildlife for food. They’re the most destructive mammal out there.” New York's hunting laws have even been "relaxed" so that you can go bag your own.
Still, it never gets easier to watch one die.
