On the Hunt for Monterey County’s Feral Pigs

In 2005,  Ian Frazier wrote about the plague of feral pigs infesting our continent, rooting up golf courses, displacing wildlife, and costing agriculture untold millions. These pigs are the descendants of domestic hogs, turned out by pilgrims and padres alike to fatten up on acorns in the forest. They’re wily. And they’re so dangerous to mess with that apex predators such as mountain lions won’t hunt the porkers after they get above a certain size.

Monterey County is believed to be the single most wild-pig-infested area in the state. Monterey County Weekly’s Christopher Neely follows interim Chief of Parks Bryan Flores on a trapping mission, rides along on a pig hunt, and interviews Professor Reginald Barrett, “the godfather” of feral pig research.

It turns out that these pigs can be put to good use; there’s money in hunting them. The state makes more than $1 million per annum on hunting licenses, and even if wild game can’t be sold, the California Department of Food and Agriculture offers feral pig recipes in some of its publications. Tidbits abound in Neely’s article: It turns out these lawless hogs are suspects in the E. coli spinach tragedy. And Neely learns that the introduction here of European wild boar, another variety of outlaw pig, was due to a wealthy local who might have been the living model for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby. 

Read Monterey County Weekly’s article “Wild pigs are wreaking havoc in Monterey County. Their presence here is complicated.”