Video: Wild Hogs Invade North Mississippi

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COLUMBUS, Miss.(WCBI)–Since their arrival in the United States, wild pigs have been increasing in numbers and have worn out their welcome.

An MSU Professor and special guest during a rotary club luncheon at Lion Hills Center & Golf Course in Columbus spoke today [Tuesday] on the importance of controlling those wild animals.

Experts monitoring the invasion of wild hogs are educating Mississippians everywhere about the serious growing problem. The wild pest has few natural predators, and hunters haven’t put a dent in the population.

“Actually they have been documented in 47 states now across the United States. They are also a problem in Canada and Mexico. So we’re looking at the whole continent of North America getting invaded by wild pigs,” said Professor Jessica Tegt/MSU Dept of Wildlife.

A wild feral sow, a female, can give birth to three or four litters a year and have eight to ten pigs at a time. Wild pigs carry many diseases and cause a lot of damages as they compete with the native wildlife population.

“$1.5 billion worth of damages to agriculture; that includes livestock, that includes crops, that includes people working,” said Jessica Tegt.

Hunting wild hogs has become a recreational sport as hunters kill and eat the critters, but wildlife experts are cautioning against the illegal altering the habitat of the animals by relocating them somewhere else for maximum sporting fun.

“One of the biggest problems is that people like to hunt them and so they transport them and put them in a new area and then they cause a problem in that new area as well,” said Jessica Tegt.

A trend shows that Mississippi deer hunters are harvesting more wild hogs.

Categories: Local News

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