What has four legs, hails from Spain, is notoriously difficult to kill, multiplies by 10 each year, and causes an annual $2.5 billion damage to the economy?
If you guessed feral hogs, you are correct. An estimated nine million nomadic pigs currently roam America, destroying crops and properties which lay in their path, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Hogs even cause the occasional fatality – either through a rare bloodthirsty attack on a human or by charging across a highway and triggering a road traffic accident.
In the most pig-dense states like Texas, law enforcement officials offer bounties of around $15 per hog ear to citizens who successfully shoot one down.
And the species is reproducing at an alarming rate, with the average hog birthing two litters of around five piglets per year. It is little wonder then that groups of self-styled ‘hog hunters’ are cropping up across the country, armed with ‘hogcopters’, bows-and-arrows and guns to wipe out thousands of the feral beasts each year.
An estimated nine million nomadic pigs currently roam America, destroying countless crops and properties which lay in their path, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Ryan Ashcraft (top left) is among the hunters who helps reduce the population
Feral hogs graze along a hiking trail in the Richland Creek wildlife management area in Texas
Ryan Ashcraft heads up a hog-hunting company called Ashcraft Aviation which offers tourists and gun enthusiasts the opportunity to snipe the animals from one of his ‘hog-copters’
‘They’re wildly out of control. They’re uncontrollable,’ said Andy Butler, who has shot thousands of hogs and runs a Texas-based company equipping law enforcement officials with the knowledge needed to safely shoot the beasts.
A few miles away, Ryan Ashcraft also heads up a hog-hunting outfit – this time from the sky – which offers tourists and gun enthusiasts the opportunity to snipe the animals from one of his ‘hog-copters’.
‘The hogs are a cancer on the Texas economy,’ the hunter told DailyMail.com, estimating that his company, Ashcraft Aviation, helps wipe out up to 15,000 wild pigs each year.
‘If we didn’t do it we would have problems,’ he said. ‘They would overrun the land.’
In fact, one city in Texas has already been inundated with the feral creatures.
College City’s Veterans Park and Athletic Complex suffered $150,000 in damage in five of its soccer fields, Chron reported. Across the United States, feral hogs cause roughly $2.5 billion in damages, according to the USDA.
Meanwhile, Matt Wetzel runs a hunting company in Oklahoma which attracts gunslingers from all over the country who want to ‘harvest and shoot wild hogs’.
‘We are trying to eradicate them,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘Or at least control the population’.
Butler runs his infantry operation near the city of Weimar, around 100 miles west of Houston in the depths of peak hog territory.
The 36-year-old grew up on a rice-producing farm which was persistently plagued by hordes of hogs tearing up their land and ruining produce.
Andy Butler, 36 (pictured) has shot thousands of hogs and runs a Texas-based company equipping law enforcement officials with the knowledge needed to safely shoot the beasts
Pictured: an aerial view of a Texas field which has been ravaged by wild hogs’
‘Imagine you got a really drunk guy, gave him a backhoe and told him to dig up a field. That’s what hogs do to your land,’ hog hunter Andy Butler told DailyMail.com, while sharing photographs of the destruction (like the above)
‘Imagine you got a really drunk guy, gave him a backhoe and told him to dig up a field. That’s what hogs do to your land,’ he told DailyMail.com. Jaw-dropping photographs show the scale of destruction to Butler’s farm.
‘They absolutely destroy crops,’ he added. ‘They are very destructive. It’s unbelievable. The amount of dirt they pull up is unbelievable.’
Butler started shooting hogs aged just 13. Since the animals are largely nocturnal, this meant learning to use night vision goggles, thermal optics and rifles.
‘I was going out maybe four to five times per week trying to hit hogs,’ Butler recalled.
‘It spiraled from there. We had neighbors who would beg us to hunt the hogs because their gardens and yards were getting torn up.’
But hunting a hog is no simple task. Although they normally travel in packs of around 20 to 35, Butler said he has come face-to-snout with a group of hogs – known as a sounder – numbering in the triple figures.
‘We have seen groups of 120 and that’s not uncommon,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘You will see these huge groups. It’s pretty eye-opening.’
On top of their vast numbers, hogs are also hard to track down due to their nomadic, nocturnal nature, their excellent sense of smell, density, and intelligence.
Pictured: People hunting hogs beside Ryan Ashcraft, who offers tourists and gun enthusiasts the opportunity to shoot the beasts from his ‘hogcopter’ in southern Texas
Ashcraft Aviation started as a means of herding cattle from above for the hunter’s southern Texas family ranch
Weimar, Texas based hog hunter Andy Butler shared photographs showing the damage hogs have done to farmer’s land. ‘The field on the right side of the photo has been obliterated by hogs,’ he told DailyMail.com of the above image
Butler explained the process for finding the elusive beasts. ‘We will look for signs that they are around,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘Digging is pretty evident. We will say “hey, are these diggings fresh?” They are pretty nomadic, they don’t really stay in one area long.
‘We also use cameras to see what times they are coming out. Then we will start going and hitting those fields.’
Oklahoma-based Wetzel, 36, whose clients can be equipped with either guns or bows and arrows, said feral hogs are among the hardest species to hunt.
‘They are extremely tough animals – very resilient – which is why they thrive so well,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘They have got a really, really good sense of smell, it’s really incredible. Some of the boars can smell sows in season up to five miles away.
‘They can definitely smell your scent if you are trying to stalk them. If the wind changes and they get a whiff of your scent, they would be gone instantly.’
Despite being an invasive species brought to the US via Florida in the 1500s by Spanish colonizers who raised them for chorizo, Wetzel said they are inherently ‘very evasive’.
‘They are actually very smart, so they can be pretty difficult to track down,’ he said.
Like Butler, Wetzel, who is based just south of Oklahoma City, uses cameras to determine a sounder’s movements before heading to a rumored hog territory.
‘We also use feeders full of corn to try to entice them. They come in and eat the corn,’ he added.
Pictured: an image hog hunter Andy Butler shared with DailyMail.com to illustrate digging by hogs – the key sign that the nomadic animals are nearby
Wetzel said hunters aim for the instant kill. ‘We try to push for head shots,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘It drops them and it doesn’t wound them – they’re just dead.
‘For the archers – bow-and-arrow shots – we encourage people to aim for the chest cavity or heart area.’
Butler revealed that the wild animals can be violent on occasion – comparing the 300-pound-beasts to ‘bowling balls’ hurtling toward you at speeds of up to 30-miles-per-hour.
‘People do get injured, we carry medical gear,’ he said.
‘I have only been charged five times. Two times involved boars – they were pretty good-sized.
‘They were wounded and they charged us. But we were fine, nobody was injured.
‘The other three were sows and we were out during the daylight. They had hoglets in the brush and the sows were protecting the hoglets.
‘We were in vehicles though. It was interesting because they were so aggressive.
‘They are really low to the ground and really dense so it’s like a bowling ball hitting you.’
In 1982, feral swine populations were localized mostly to Florida, Texas and parts of California
But by 2023, feral swines have fully colonized the southern US, along with California
Wetzel told DailyMail.com he has also experienced hog rage – but said the red mist only tends to descend if one becomes wounded, cornered or confused.
‘A couple times we have had 30 to 40 in a group and they all scatter and they come running right towards you,’ he said.
‘Mainly because they don’t know where the shot came from. Sometimes once in a while it can get a little intense.’
Wetzel added though that the animals are ‘for sure an issue’ on the roads.
‘I have hit some in a vehicle before, and I know people who have hit them,’ he said. ‘It’s a problem for insurance companies.
‘But I don’t think they’re any worse than deer. Most of the time they go under the vehicle.’
In October last year, two women were killed after a group of wild pigs caused their car to swerve into a head-on collision in Jim Wells County.
And in 2019, a Texas caregiver, 59, was mauled to death by a pack of wild hogs while outside the home of the elderly couple she looked after, before being partially eaten.
Feral pigs roam near a Mertzon, Texas ranch on February 18, 2009
Shocking figures show that wild hogs kill more people per year than sharks.
Between 2014 and 2023, there was an average of 5.8 fatal shark attacks worldwide compared to 19.7 wild pig attacks, AgWeb reported.
This year alone, there have already been seven deaths globally from wild pig incidents, the outlet added – while revealing the number of humans killed had climbed steadily from 2000 to 2019 to a total of 172 deaths.
Judge Frank Malinak, presides over Lee County, a few miles east of Austin, where bounties are offered in return for a hog ear.
‘Invariably, when you sit down with a group of farmers and ranchers in the morning for coffee… The topic of wild hogs comes up,’ Judge Malinak said.
‘You’re going to have farmers and ranchers complain about the damage they’ve done.’
‘Bring the ears in just so we know the wild hog has been eliminated,’ he added, speaking to KVUE. ‘We pay bounty for each one those hogs brought in.’
The county offers $10 for each hog slain from a budget of $10,000 per year – and the authorities say they have already reached the limit.
But the price of pursuing the pesky beasts can also be hefty.
Butler said a night vision monocular can cost around $3,500, night vision goggles $15,000, panoramic night vision equipment $45,000, while thermal optics and rifles can come with a price-tag anywhere from $180 up to $40,000 for serious hunters.
For Ryan Ashcraft, 29, who hunts hogs from helicopters, the costs of pursuing the pesky animals can be sky-high
Pictured: a hog hunter approaches the hogcopter ahead of a session with Ashcraft Aviation
And for Ryan Ashcraft, 29, who hunts hogs from helicopters, the costs can be sky-high.
Like Butler, Ashcraft hails from a Texan ranching family who started sniping feral pigs to protect their livelihood.
‘We needed a helicopter to herd our family cows,’ the 29-year-old Texan told DailyMail.com. ‘The hogs were just a necessary evil.’
But the damage-control measure gradually evolved into a career for Ashcraft, who now offers both commercial and private rides in his hogcopters.
‘We have people from all over the world who use Ashcraft Aviation. They pay to shoot the hogs,’ Ashcraft said.
He added that the business helps out local farmers and ranchers, who pay him to help control the local hog population and keep their businesses safe from the tyranny of the pigs.
