Hog Heaven

From of all places, the Telegraph, comes this story of hogs running amok all over the countryside of Texas. Now, sure, they cause a lot of crop damage, but Texans, being Texans have figured out how to handle the situation:

Eat more wild boar.

Sport hunters have been taking to the fields and forests since wildlife managers declared the Lone Star State the "feral hog capital of the United States" after the wild boar population rose to more than two million this year.

At least 20 other states have also reported problems because of the creatures' big appetites and bad manners. Across the country, damage to agriculture is estimated to be as high as $800 million (£414 million) a year. "It's got pretty bad out there," said Phil Seymore, 63, a farmer from Merkel, Texas, who has had to give up planting grain after losing thousands of dollars worth of crops to pigs who treated his fields "like a self-service buffet". The omnivorous animals had also been reported as eating small livestock.

Scientists say that the blame lies partly with a 16th-century Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto, who landed in Florida in 1539 with 600 troops and a herd of swine. The animals, which were bred as food, have spread across the south-eastern states.

Tyler Campbell, a biologist at the National Wildlife Research Centre in Kingsville, Texas, said: "One of the main factors at work is that they have no natural predators. Also, they have an exceptional reproductive capability."

In Texas, most land is privately owned, so there are no state eradication programmes and farmers are free to take matters into their own hands. This allows them, by running hunts and selling the meat, to make back some of the profits the animals have cost them.

The Animal Uprising™: on the ropes in Texas. Note that Texan pigs are 'way meaner than British pigs, too. They eat small animals. The British pigs can't even catch one policeman! And British pigs beat up nurses, too. Hah!