A Florida Feral Hog or Wild Pig
Picture credit: US Fish and Wildlife
As you know we have only been here in Florida for about ten years.
To say that coming here to live was Culture Shock, is an understatement.
There is simply no way to excuse, explain or define some of the behavior here.
In my email this morning was yet another typical example of how some people here handle a bothersome situation.
In this state, thanks to a Spanish explorer, who along with throngs of others invaded Florida hundreds of years ago, with little concern for the havoc that they wreaked on the places and people, are descendants from Hernando Desoto’s wild hogs, that have now become a definite problem for many.
Granted these wild hogs do frequently plow through yards eating and destroying much that they survey, but they are simply doing what they must to survive.
They are omnivores and will eat vegetation or what ever is available to them.
Thanks to repeated ignorant and thoughtless behavior, there are now many invasive species here, like the thousands of Burmese Pythons in the Everglades, that now number so many they are in danger of completely taking over the entire area and starving out local animals, not to mention the terror they present when the tourists see them.
It is not that these animals are not a problem, this is understood, it is the recommendation by a local Rancher, or his idea of how to solve it, that makes this state the one of a kind place that it now is.
His suggestion is that the perfect solution to the pig problem is, to eat them.
One of the loudest complaints about the horrible hogs, has been of course, the damage that they do to the countless pristine Golf courses statewide, which in Florida hold nearly Holy stature.
Too many animals get too little respect here and these wild pigs will be just the latest victim of a mind-set where the next to the most hunted animal after the Florida white-tailed deer, will soon be the wild pigs.
I have always had a very soft spot in my heart for pigs, I love them and this hurts.
I wish there was some humane, kind way to solve this, but that will not happen here.
Not in a state where nearly every one has at least one gun and too may find hunting animals a thrilling sport.
There are numerous Hunting Clubs and Ranches entirely devoted to the slaughter of them.
Doing a Google search for Hunting animals in Florida delivered over 33 million links.
Any questions?
I wonder if this line of thinking may in the future perhaps also encompass invasive humans or other?
Just asking?
Did I mention that hunting season begins in days, but the gun shots and the howling hounds are already being heard here in the Forest every morning.
Yes, I am in the minority, I love pigs and refuse to eat them.
Childhood memories on my Uncle’s farm in Indiana, simply will not allow me to.
Seeing all of this today and knowing what is happening to them, makes me so sad for their bleak life and hopeless future.
The ugly truth is, that this latest approach to an animal irritation, is yet another typical Florida solution.
Places to learn more:
A solution to Florida’s Wild Pig Problems: Eat Them
Can Wild Pigs Ravaging the U.S. Be Stopped?
Hog Wild In Florida! Feral Pigs A Problem
Wild Hogs In Florida: An overview
Walking with the Alligators 
I am totally with you. There are not many people in my neighborhood either who agree. My neighbor calls the start of the hunting season the start of WW III and it certainly sounds like it and it gives me the shivers.
We were never meant to eat them, we are supposed to be their Guardians.
We are failing them on a monumental scale.
As a non-cracker (I am as well) are you fearful of being named an invasive?
My parents have lived all over Florida and I have been coming here since the 70’s.
So, don’t really feel like an outsider.
Just don’t care much for the way animals and women are treated here!
Me, too. My parents never lived here, but I have been down here since college and on business for 30 years, the natives are not that friendly so far…
If there were more natural predators, perhaps the situation wouldn’t have got so out of hand – but of course, ‘predators’ would be much too ‘dangerous’ to have around and would no doubt also be hunted to extinction too! Humans really do rate themselves too highly! Humans really are the ‘invasive species’!
Can I say simply to you Dear Peggy, AMEN!
Here’s an interesting article about how the food and supplement industries are thinking up new ways to kill us.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/10/microbiome-health-gut-bacteria
A very interesting story.
How will it all turn out in the end I wonder?
Reblogged this on Freedom For Cetaceans.
Thank you so very much for sharing this!!!!
There’s a simple, elegant solution to this. I should have thought of it before: Eat the golfers. P.S. What’s a person like you doing in a place like That?
Brilliant thinking Mike. Thank you!
Hi. Thanks for your recent like. I have been on the road and – as a fellow Floridian – wanted to catch up.
I have lived in Florida almost 30 years. Which is a shock because I never would have thought it possible. Anyway, I feel as if I’ve earned the right to make comments about the state – which, obviously, I do.
I cannot comment on the feral pig situation simply because I do not know that much about it. For the record, I do not hunt; I do not own a gun. I stopped eating meat this year – for health reasons.
Sadly, the situation you comment on is just one of many problems facing Florida. And, for me, after almost three decades, I am pretty much done. You can have the traffic, the crappy roads, the bad schools, the uneducated population, the sleazy politicians and business interests, the invasion of foreign life human and otherwise – you can have it all.
Whatever “old Florida” charm existed when I moved here has been pretty much stomped out – except, perhaps, in some small towns and rural areas which I recently drove through. Things still seem pretty nice out there.
True, no place is perfect. But there has to be somewhere better than this.
How do I know? Because I have traveled and lived in many places.
These words tear at me more than you can imagine. I love(d) Florida. But I’d rather get out while I still have some nice memories.
Take care everyone.
Hello.
Thank you so much for sharing your sad, but true thoughts about this state.
Florida could and should be a perfect paradise, all that is necessary for this is already here.
But those who only see this place for the profit to be taken from it, will never stop until it is all paved in and over and all the beautiful wild things here are all dead.
It is sad to me, that in the 10 years we have lived here, we never ran into people like you!
I agree with you about eating “pig”, I just won’t do it. But I must admit the solution to curbing the population makes sense to me. If the predators aren’t capable of curbing them then having an open season on them probably would abate the problem. I could imagine that they are an excellent resource for top of the chain predators am I wrong?