Our Florida black boars are descended directly from the hogs the Spanish brought over. They escaped and diversified; while not truly a boar (opposed to the near extinct European boars or even the Texan javelina hogs), they do show some of the wild traits as you said --- including nasty tusks and a short, bristly coat as well as a slightly different body structure.Myrin wrote:Either Discovery Channel or NatGeo did a show a while ago called Hogzilla, named for a picture of a huge wild hog someone had killed that was circulating around the internet at the time. But most of the show was about the growing problem of wild hogs in general, especially in the American South.
One spring, I had one which took exception to the existence of my garden. He ate everything down to the roots, even the two foot tall rosemary bush (Heh...pre-seasoned on the hoof!) The neighbors, who are of Appalachian stock, took to hunting it. Technically you're supposed to have a license, I think, but it had started charging people and threatening pet enclosures (with the pets in them, obviously). When it was shot, we had an old fashioned pig roast.
Best meat ever.
Normally I try to leave the wildlife alone to live out its life in its own habitat --- obviously they were here first --- but sometimes it's just not possible.
So...we're not zoned for pigs because of the problem it poses to the insurance for liability and because, with the water table so close to the surface, their waste would likely damage the drinking water (not to mention the swamp ecology).
