Hog Hunting: America’s Worst Offense You Haven’t Heard Of
North American land is under attack by a growing threat that doesn’t even cross many people’s minds. It comes from animals that are rarely thought of as dangerous, destructive, or invasive. However, they have taken over hundreds of thousands of square miles, and their population has grown exponentially within the United States and Canada.
Wild hogs are widely considered to be the greatest cause of ranch and farm land destruction in the United States. Causing around $2.5 billion in total damage annually, and $1.5 billion in damage to agricultural land alone, hogs are prolific in about 39 states, and with the current trend in their population, researchers, ranchers, and government officials alike are worried they will continue to spread.
When hogs come across a field, they will dig holes and uproot the crop to feast on the roots. There is no limit to what the hogs won’t eat: plants, eggs, small birds, frogs. “I’ve heard of them taking adult white-tailed deer,” says Dr. Brook, professor of animal science at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. If all the hogs did was chew up crops then that would be one thing, but unfortunately the problem is much worse.
The investment made by both the private and public sector to help solve and/or manage the problem has been massive, but it’s not enough. As of right now, there are a few common methods to manage the population of hogs. The US Department of Agriculture employs a method by which authorities place bait laced with sodium nitrite in special cages that only adult feral pigs can access. Trapping is also a common method of containing the animals, where they get drawn in by various kinds of bait after which they are killed. Experts agree that as of right now, the best method to manage the population is, to put it simply, kill it off. It’s hard to design a system to prevent an 800 pound animal from entering one’s property. Furthermore, in their pursuit of food, hogs rip up irrigation, chew fences, and damage machinery.
Where I take issue is the glorification that has come about in the murder. At the end of the day, these hogs are just animals trying to go about their lives. While the animals are massively invasive and cause millions of damage, it is impossible to ignore the ugly business that this issue has allowed to prosper. Companies have spawned that will take paying customers to massacre the animals in helicopters or hot air balloons using semi-automatic weapons. Since the hog population has grown so much, around 1.7 million hogs must be killed each year to manage the population. To meet this demand, the number of companies has grown exponentially with some companies, such as HeliBacon, charging thousands of dollars for a trip. Customers will massacre the hogs then pose with them on social media, smiling over the dead animals. They do this under the guise of “hunting,” even though, according to lawmakers who encourage a shoot-on-sight policy, it is not considered hunting because the hogs are so prolific. This classification is important as it clears up many restrictions typically needed with hunting, such as the time of year in which the animals can be hunted and the kind of weapons that can be used.
I am not against hunting, to be clear. I am from a family of hunters and have numerous friends that all hunt back home after all. But if you talk to any of them about what it means to hunt, they understand the gravity of what they are doing. There is a fundamental difference between hunting for sport or food, and celebrating the death of thousands of animals. Any hunter will tell you that at the end of the day they are taking the life of an animal. In order to do that, you must respect the animal. For example, give it the most painless death possible, ensure the carcass isn’t going to waste, or use the meat for food so the hunt was for a purpose. The glorification of the hogs' death has completely removed that factor. No longer treated with respect in any manner, wild hogs are sometimes left to just rot in fields. While there are other methods of dealing with the dead animals, simply leaving them for organic compost prevails.
An animal’s death shouldn’t be glorified. It is not the hogs’ fault that Spanish conquistadors brought them here in the 1500s, and not their fault they had a population boom. The idealization of massacring the animals has gone too far, and reflects on a much uglier aspect of society. Being so desensitized to violence has made it seem as though it is a norm in society.
We are losing our ability to empathize with victims of violence, and instead praising the violence that was inflicted. Constantly being bombarded with images of violent atrocities on the news or via social media has caused our brains to be so desensitized, we are no longer repulsed by the sight of it. Being repeatedly exposed to violence has been shown to cause low emotional response over time, which has brutal implications for society. Losing our emotional response to violence means we are slowly losing our ability to empathize with victims of violence. In essence, we don’t see the issue with the extermination of millions of animals and prioritize the commercial benefits of their death over their death itself.
Wild hogs are a massive issue in the American South, and soon to be the whole continent as well. There are humane ways to deal with the management of their population, such as the toxic baiting method. However the privatization and glorification of massacring thousands of the animals reflects a disgusting aspect of American society, celebrating violence instead of shying away from it.
“Wild Hogs” by Michael Eicklemann is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0