Curran Salter has fought a war to a draw. He's satisfied with it.
"Last year we removed 609 feral pigs and this year we've already removed 440," said Salter, U.S. Department of Agriculture feral swine biologist for Kansas. "I think that means our population is around 1,000 wild pigs in the state, about like we have been the last several years. That's good."
Though that sounds like a lot of problematic wild pork, Curran pointed out it could be much worse. He's seen biological estimates that say Oklahoma now has more 1 million wild pigs.
"It's moved right up behind Texas, as one of the states with the most (feral) pigs in the country," Salter said. "That's not a good distinction to have. Thankfully we're nothing like that up here."
The pigs Salter, and experts in at least 40 other states and several Canadian provinces, are battling are descendants of domestic swine gone wild. Spanish explorers introduced them to the New World in the 1500s as a food source. Others escaped pens on farms the following centuries. Over the past 30 years, populations have sprung up where feral swine have been brought in from other states, and released by those hoping to establish a population for hunting.
