Oklahoma farmers hate wild hogs while hunters love them

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- If these pigs could fly, they'd be locusts.<br><br>Wild hogs found across Oklahoma root through grassland, crops and streambeds like a plague, sometimes turning a wheatfield or

Saturday, April 10th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- If these pigs could fly, they'd be locusts.

Wild hogs found across Oklahoma root through grassland, crops and streambeds like a plague, sometimes turning a wheatfield or golf fairway into a wallow overnight, officials and landowners said.

The hogs are also "cagey" and even dangerous.

The animals are not all bad, though, Gene Eskew said: "They are good eating."

"Next to man, they're the only animal that leaves a permanent scratch on the earth," said Eskew, a staff veterinarian for the state Agriculture Department until he retired in 2002.

"They'll go into a Bermuda pasture and make 10 to 15 acres overnight look like bulldozers got in there."

Sometimes, Russell Stevens said, the hogs don't even wait for crops to sprout.

"Right after the farmers have planted the corn, they'll go right down the corn row and root up the kernels," said Stevens, wildlife and range specialist for the Noble Foundation in Ardmore.

Wild hogs also can spread disease, experts said.

"I wish every single one of those things was dead," said Neal Boatright, a landowner near Fort Gibson.

Wild, or "feral," hogs can be found almost anywhere in Oklahoma, except for some northwestern counties. The persistent porkers are especially thick in south-central and southeastern Oklahoma.

Oklahoma isn't close to wild hog heaven, though. California, Florida and Texas have far more feral hogs. But hogs, which Eskew calls "extraordinarily reproductive," seem to be moving north, and Oklahoma has plenty already.

With their savvy survival skills, the state hog population is likely to increase.

Hogs have become such a problem that federal officials sometimes hunt them with "qualified shooters that shoot from helicopters," Eskew said.

Wild hogs are diverse. Some are escaped domestic pigs. Some, their ears clipped for identification, have been set loose intentionally by people wanting to stock timberlands and river bottoms for hog hunting. Some feral hogs are crossbred with bloodlines of Russian boars imported for sport in the 1930s.

Today's versions vary in color, markings and in size up to 300 pounds. When they can be found, and that's no easy task, they might be foraging alone or in herds of up to 200.

With a keen sense of smell, a wild hog is crafty quarry, hiding well and moving frequently, usually at night.

The "poor man's grizzly bear," as Eskew calls the feral hog, is not defenseless either. Some have tusks up to five inches long that can gut a horse. And they can be testy when threatened.

"I tell hunters, 'Before you pick a target you better pick a tree,"' Eskew said.

While landowners don't care for wild hogs, hunters love them. The two groups cooperate to try to check the population, with landowners gladly allowing hunters to engage in their favorite pastime.

Jim Rolin joins his dogs for a wild hog chase "every chance I get."

The Purcell man, a state game warden for McClain County, said when the dogs "bay one up," he hops off his mule. He gets behind the hog, grabs its legs, turns it over and hog-ties it.

"I like it better than eating ice cream," Rolin said of the hunt. "And I like ice cream."