Top cast Edit. Lea Penick Self as Self. Jerry Campbell Self as Self. Krystal Campbell Self as Self. Robert Campbell Self as Self. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Located in the heart of Texas, the family dedicates itself to the front lines - riding horseback, driving a custom-rigged Jeep, using highly trained dogs with GPS tracking systems and employing good old-fashioned know-how to help those endangered by these destructive beasts. Clad in chaps and cowboy boots, the family sets out in each episode to square off against these extremely intelligent animals that are terrorizing helpless landowners.
Add content advisory. Did you know Edit. Connections Referenced in Chelsea Lately: Episode 6. User reviews 7 Review. Top review. What started barely ok turned rapidly into complete crud. Anyway thems little piglets compared to what we've hunted.
They tear up recreational areas, occasionally even terrorizing tourists in state and national parks, and squeeze out other wildlife. Texas allows hunters to kill wild hogs year-round without limits or capture them alive to take to slaughterhouses to be processed and sold to restaurants as exotic meat.
Thousands more are shot from helicopters. The goal is not eradication, which few believe possible, but control. The wily hogs seem to thrive in almost any conditions, climate or ecosystem in the state—the Pineywoods of east Texas; the southern and western brush country; the lush, rolling central Hill Country. They are surprisingly intelligent mammals and evade the best efforts to trap or kill them and those that have been unsuccessfully hunted are even smarter. They have no natural predators, and there are no legal poisons to use against them.
Sows begin breeding at 6 to 8 months of age and have two litters of four to eight piglets—a dozen is not unheard of—every 12 to 15 months during a life span of 4 to 8 years. Even porcine populations reduced by 70 percent return to full strength within two or three years. Using their extra-long snouts, flattened and strengthened on the end by a plate of cartilage, they can root as deep as three feet. Farmers planting corn have discovered that the hogs go methodically down the rows during the night, extracting seeds one by one.
Hogs erode the soil and muddy streams and other water sources, possibly causing fish kills. They disrupt native vegetation and make it easier for invasive plants to take hold. The hogs claim any food set out for livestock, and occasionally eat the livestock as well, especially lambs, kids and calves. They also eat such wildlife as deer and quail and feast on the eggs of endangered sea turtles. Because of their susceptibility to parasites and infections, wild hogs are potential carriers of disease.
Swine brucellosis and pseudorabies are the most problematic because of the ease with which they can be transmitted to domestic pigs and the threat they pose to the pork industry.
And those are just the problems wild hogs cause in rural areas. They treat lawns and gardens like a salad bar and tangle with household pets.
Hogs, wild or otherwise, are not native to the United States. During wars or economic downturns, many settlers abandoned their homesteads and the pigs were left to fend for themselves. In the s, Eurasian wild boars were brought to Texas and released for hunting. They bred with free-ranging domestic animals and escapees that had adapted to the wild. And yet wild hogs were barely more than a curiosity in the Lone Star State until the s.
Hunters found them challenging prey, so wild hog populations were nurtured on ranches that sold hunting leases; some captured hogs were released in other parts of the state.
Game ranchers set out feed to attract deer, but wild hogs pilfered it, growing more fecund. Finally, improved animal husbandry reduced disease among domestic pigs, thereby reducing the incidence among wild hogs.
Few purebred Eurasian wild boars are left today, but they have hybridized with feral domestic hogs and continue to spread. Escaped domestic hogs adapt to the wild in just months, and within a couple of generations they transform into scary-looking beasts as mean as can be. The difference between domestic and wild hogs is a matter of genetics, experience and environment.
Most domestic pigs have sparse coats, but descendants of escapees grow thick bristly hair in cold environments. Dark-skinned pigs are more likely than pale ones to survive in the wild and pass along their genes. The two teeth on top are called whetters or grinders, and the two on the bottom are called cutters; continual grinding keeps the latter deadly sharp.
Wild hogs are rarely as big as pen-bound domestics; they average to pounds as adults, although a few reach more than pounds. Well-fed pigs develop large, wide skulls; those with a limited diet, as in the wild, grow smaller, narrower skulls with longer snouts useful for rooting. Wild pigs have poor eyesight but good hearing and an acute sense of smell; they can detect odors up to seven miles away or 25 feet underground.
They can run 30 miles an hour in bursts. Adult males are solitary, keeping to themselves except when they breed or feed from a common source. Females travel in groups, called sounders, usually of 2 to 20 but up to 50 individuals, including one or more sows, their piglets and maybe a few adoptees. Wild boar is a traditional meat in Italy, where it's served in a ragu sauce with pappardelle pasta. So it's nothing new to New York foodies, who've been dining on it for decades in Italian restaurants like DeGrezia Ristorante in Manhattan.
The overpopulation of wild boars in Texas ranch lands has prompted a new wave of culinary creativity. It's become a fixture of Texas cuisine, even though the tough meat is tricky to prepare. If you do it right it's really delicious; if you don't do it right you're chewing for a week.
Love said that he buys the boar meat from Texas distributors. He said he also shoots up to a dozen boars every time he visits his ranch, for purposes of eradication.
Texas' law stipulates that hunters are allowed to eat the meat, but only state-approved trappers are allowed to sell it. Try this, I tell you, and you will never go back to normal pepperoni. Companies like Helibacon, which charges customers thousands of dollars to shoot wild boars from helicopters, are capitalizing on pig proliferation in Texas.
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