1 of 4
Photography courtesy of the Missouri Department of Conservation
2 of 4
3 of 4
4 of 4
Shooting wild hogs with a rifle from a moving helicopter sounds like something from a typical weekend at Ted Nugent’s house, but this week, it happened here in Missouri, in the Bootheel.
It seems that the hogs, an invasive, non-native species, have gotten way out of hand at the 22,000-acre Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in Stoddard and Wayne counties. They are rooting through fields and ripping them up, and eating practically everything in sight. Their remarkable knack for both consumption and procreation means that they have a way of killing off other species. They’ll eat the eggs of birds that nest on the ground, the vegetation that keeps deer and turkey populations viable, and any insect, small mammal, amphibian, or reptile that crosses their path. In a single year, says A.J. Hendershott, the Missouri Department of Conservation's outreach and education supervisor for the Southeast Region, the population of these omnivorous eating machines may triple. While you read this, an estimated several hundred of the insouciant swine are chomping their way across what Mingo Refuge Manager Ben Mense calls “the largest remaining tract of bottomland hardwood forest left in the Bootheel of Missouri.”
What to do about these highly adaptive, uninvited, thoroughly rude creatures?
This past Wednesday, several hunters took to the skies in a helicopter flight sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation to shoot these hairy pigs dead. It was the first time this dramatic method has been used at Mingo.
Hopes were high. (No pun intended.)
“One of the reasons we use the helicopter is to have the most efficient means for eradicating hogs as possible,” Hendershott says. “Trapping is weeks of work, freshening bait, checking traps, etc., and these animals are smart. They detect traps very easily. And they change their patterns and movements. They are very adaptable. With traps, you might get 15 hogs. If we can get out with the helicopter and get 40 or 50 in one day, so that's so much more efficient.”
Well, it could have been more efficient, anyway. Wednesday's aerial hog hunt yielded exactly one casualty.
“They did kill one hog,” reports Hendershott. “The bright sun gave us problems. Mingo is a very wet place with bottomlands and swamp. The patterns of light and shadow can make it really difficult to pick out hogs. We’ve done this in other areas and we do a flyover and we’re not able to detect any hogs at all on that day. They can be in a position where we can’t find them. That’s not desirable, but sometimes you have to take the hand that you're dealt.”
So what happens now? What if visitors to Mingo encounter these triumphant, surviving hogs? Are they maneaters?
“Folks do need to be aware that feral pigs can be dangerous,” Hendershott says. “I would be particularly concerned about a sow with piglets—and the tusks are sharp and dangerous.”
“They can be dangerous,” Mense confirms, “but typically if they see you, they’ll run away from you.”
A lot of hunters would be happy to have permission to kill the hogs, but Missouri is not a hog-hunting state. Even if it were, Mense says, you might not want to make bacon from these guys. “There are issues with diseases and parasites, and we wouldn’t want anyone eating them and getting sick,” he says.
There’s an irony there, in that the hog problem itself may be blamed on hunters. The wild hogs are not native to these parts; guess where they came from?
“Some can be escapees from a facility where they were being raised,” Hendershott says. “Some can be escaped pets. But some were probably released for a hog hunt, which the Department of Conservation does not encourage. Hog-hunting comes at a big cost for our native animals and plants.”
That much is clear. Still, Missouri’s wild hog problem has not yet reached the epidemic level. In Florida, Burmese pythons are slithering everywhere with impunity, a major crisis. But we should be concerned. Some animals are really good at eating, multiplying, taking over an ecosystem, and not being easily caught or killed, and that can be bad news for the rest of the environment.
If helicopters really are the best way to kill dozens of hogs in one day, will they rise above the wetlands of Mingo again?
“I don't know if we'll go up again,” Hendershott says. “We'll continue with our trapping efforts, though. The problem is that when the trees leaf out, we’re done with this endeavor; helicopters won't help us at that point.”
If all else fails, maybe we should do what they do about the wild-hog problem in Texas—start a reality-TV show.
