{"id":294091,"date":"2025-06-15T03:24:30","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T03:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/wild-pigs-are-causing-big-problems-in-californias-bay-area-and-their-population-seems-to-be-growing\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T03:24:30","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T03:24:30","slug":"wild-pigs-are-causing-big-problems-in-californias-bay-area-and-their-population-seems-to-be-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=294091","title":{"rendered":"Wild Pigs Are Causing Big Problems in California’s Bay Area, and Their Population Seems to Be Growing"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Land managers and other authorities are ramping up efforts to trap and kill the destructive, non-native animals<\/h2>\n
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Sarah Kuta<\/a><\/p>\n

– Daily Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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Wild pigs are becoming increasingly problematic in California’s Bay Area.
\n Santiago Urquijo via Getty Images<\/span>
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Feral pigs are going \u201chog wild\u201d across the San Francisco Bay Area\u2014and wildlife officials are ramping up their efforts to stop the destructive creatures.<\/p>\n

Wild pigs are nothing new in the Golden State. However, land managers say they are becoming more problematic this year, likely because the state has had three wet winters in a row, which created an abundance of food for the non-native animals, reports KGO-TV<\/a>\u2019s Leslie Brinkley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen the impacts increasing,\u201d says Doug Bell, wildlife program manager at the East Bay Regional Park District in Oakland, to the Mercury News<\/em><\/a>\u2019 Paul Rogers.\u00a0And the animals\u2019 population seems to be growing, too.<\/p>\n

Today, California\u2019s wild pigs are often hybrids, with both domestic pig and European wild boar ancestors. \u201cThe combination made it a super invader,\u201d\u00a0Michael Marlow of the National Feral Swine Damage Management Program<\/a> told the New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u2019 Thomas Fuller in 2022.<\/p>\n

In the past, authorities have typically focused on hazing the wild pigs, turning to non-lethal deterrents like devices that emit high-pitched sounds and motion-sensitive lights. However, they\u2019ve recently stepped up their efforts to trap and euthanize them.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of last year, for example, the Santa Clara Valley Water District agreed<\/a> to pay $125,000 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to trap and kill wild pigs on some of the land it owns east of San Jose, per the Mercury News<\/em>. And in May, the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority agreed to pay a local wildlife control company $243,000 over the next three years to kill wild pigs on the properties it manages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing a lot more pig damage,\u201d says Aaron H\u00e9bert, the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority\u2019s natural resources manager, to the Mercury News<\/em>. \u201cTrying to control the population and not just trying to haze them is now part of the strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear exactly how many wild pigs live throughout California. However, officials say their numbers seem to be growing. Female pigs, called sows, can have up 4 to 12 piglets per litter<\/a>, and they can produce up to two litters each year. The damaging creatures have now been found in 56 of California\u2019s 58 counties.<\/p>\n

Beyond California, wild pigs are also a problem in several other states<\/a>. They\u2019re widespread throughout the south and southeast, in states like Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, according to maps created by the USDA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Spanish and Russian explorers first brought pigs to California in the 18th and 19th centuries, and some of those domestic creatures got out and became feral. However, today\u2019s wild pig problem mostly traces its roots to the 1920s, when a Canadian millionaire named George Gordon Moore purchased a ranch in Carmel Valley as a \u201ctheme park for the wealthy,\u201d wrote Katie Dowd for SFGATE<\/a><\/em> in 2019. Among activities like polo and golf, he offered hunting of imported European wild boars, which he let loose on the property. Some of those boars escaped and began breeding with the feral pigs, which created \u201ca wild boar\/feral domestic pig hybrid,\u201d according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since 1957, wild pigs have been considered a \u201cgame mammal\u201d in California, which means it\u2019s legal to hunt them. Growing up to 250 pounds<\/a>, these omnivores feast on anything and everything they can find\u2014from amphibians and small mammals<\/a> to acorns, tubers, fruits and insects.<\/p>\n

The pigs can also carry diseases and pathogens. On public lands, hikers have reported being charged, run over or aggressively followed by the pigs.<\/p>\n

They also wreak havoc on landscapes, tearing up lawns, destroying irrigation systems and damaging creeks, ponds and streams. In some instances, this destruction paves the way for invasive plants like medusahead grass and goatgrass to proliferate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re basically rototilling the land,\u201d says Cassie Bednar, natural resource program coordinator for Santa Clara County Parks, to SFGATE<\/a><\/em>\u2019s Kasia Pawlowska.<\/p>\n

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