If you could convince people to eat them in some form, that might help.
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We had feral hogs appear – saw their destruction on a neighbor’s place in front of the house. I’d heard such horror stories about what they could do to land and fencing, I was worried, but suddenly they disappeared.
When speaking to our state wildlife department about the cougar that comes around here every once in a while (has been seen lounging on the front porch of our neighbor directly across the street!), was told not to worry about our horses (next-door neighbor has a mini), as feral hogs are the favorite food of mountain lions (deer are second).
Explains what happened to the feral hogs, at least around here. Go, cougars!
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that is the question I have asked without a reply Yet. There was a period up to about five years ago when the pigs where everywhere, now none are in the city.
I am pretty sure the wild pigs did not give a damned about the city ordinance restricting pigs from being kept in the city, if that was the case all they would need to do is pass an ordinance outlawing coyotes
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Trouble with cougars is that they are solitary and cover and defend a large territory, about 150 square miles, they traverse and mark about every three weeks.
Way not enough cougars to even make a dent in the fast reproducing ubiquitous feral hogs.
If your hog numbers are down, other than cougars may be at play there, hunting pressure, drought and such is way more apt to keep them at bay than any cougar may.
We had a problem for a while, then the drought kept them away until a couple summers again they seem to have increased in numbers again, as we have been getting more rain.
This is what a grown feral pig can do in a few minutes grubbing around fence posts or well or corner of a shed. We had some dig a good 2’ way under a horse trough in pens and lift some 50’ of five barbed wire fence clear off the ground.
A patch by the fence looked like some mad farmer had been plowing here and there:
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I’ve been told that wild hog meat is virtually inedible. Also, Brucellosis is rampant in wild hogs, and can’t be cured, there are over 20 other diseases carried by wild hogs. Plus, trichinosis is common too, and that’s a horrible disease to get, carried in all kinds of hogs, bears (because they eat infected hogs), and other animals.
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Our feral hogs have been gone now for years, never to return. That kind of damage is exactly what I feared; we got so far as to install electric fence wire along the bottom on the outside of our perimeter fence.
The wildlife staffer told me that the lion seen in our neighborhood is based in another town in our county, and that she (it’s a female) has a territory about fifty miles in diameter. Apparently, a lion goes out hunting, then stashes some meals in various spots, to come back for later when needed.
Neighbor across the street – the one whose little dog wouldn’t quit barking until he opened the front door to find the cougar on his porch – told me one way to tell when “our” cougar is in the vicinity is that the otherwise numerous deer disappear for a while, as they go into hiding (he has two corn deer-feeders on his property right across from our front gate). Since he said this to me, I’ve been paying attention to when the deer are scarce.
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One morning in a large, beautiful, fully-natural never-developed rural space, what seemed to be at least a half-acre of meadow was just torn to peices as if someone had harrowed the hell out of it. There was other damage scattered throughout a huge area of meadow. The aftermath of one night and a group of about 10-20 hogs, was the guesstimate of someone who was attempting to keep track of them.
Not something that would grow back naturally. Throughout, deep roots and soil were turned over and up toward the sky. When feeding the hogs score it thoroughly and deeply and turn everything over. There’s nothing left for other foragers. Sometimes the area doesn’t really recover. Even after only one night of feeding.
The visible evidence stands out that the hogs fed there for literally years, even after a single night. The ground stays rough, often the ‘good’ grass is dead and doesn’t grow back in, and a haphazard assortment of weeds takes hold but never looks healthy because it is on the torn parts above the ground water saturation level. When I say the ground is rough, I mean too rough to ride a horse across without a lot of stumbles and difficulties.
Given how destructive they are I can’t imagine how they are supposed to work in a natural setting. They must keep moving as nomads, because it seems they destroy their own food sources. They do nothing good that I’ve ever been aware of. Maybe serve as a renewable food source for areas with a lot of large predators?
Can a coyote pack kill a hog? Will they? The hogs seem to be huge in comparison and it seems it would be very hard to escape their tusks. Coyotes can kill larger animals by biting at the prey’s underbelly, but I’m guessing that won’t work with hogs.
Horses and cattle, when too concentrated in one pasture, can also turn a pasture into a dirt lot. But once they are gone, or just greatly reduced in number, the pasture can recover fairly quickly if there is any grass left at all.
The hogs seem to be a whole other dimension of species in a natural environment.
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We have mountain lions and bears all around our house, not so much coyotes to my knowledge, I never hear or see of them but wolves do move through sometimes. With all the security cameras people have on their houses they post the video and time if nothing else so that we know to put up animals and guard our garbage cans if it’s our garbage pickup day. I live in town lol but we do have a creek that has trails along it and lots of brush so it’s a natural corridor plus I can see the wilderness boundary from my kitchen window. I grew up in this town and we did not have deer or turkeys in town, let alone the bears and cats. The pressure and opportunities for the wildlife have changed and now they are here. We haven’t had any trouble and I attribute that entirely to our woven wire perimeter fence that also contains our four big dogs.
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How ironic that as our population has become more citified, more rural young people making their lives in suburbs and cities, more cities, suburbs, increasingly dense housing … wild nature has come to us. 
As Dr. Malcolm said, Nature finds a way.
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we have kangaroos, at least the ones around escape often …just Google search “kangaroo on the loose Texas”
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You also mentioned the Yellowstone caldera of which I’m sitting on. Let’s not bring Kangaroos into it! lol
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For many years, we had lemurs and wallabies in our neighborhood, thankfully around the corner and down the street a ways. Every feeding time, we could hear the shrieks of excitement even at our house – the adult daughter whose parents lived across the street told us her folks hated those neighbors due to the noise.
The house has since been sold, and the wildlife moved. When they were here, often people passing would pull over their vehicles and go up to the tall fence to see the animals, until the owners finally planted vegetation screening. No escapees that I know of, though.
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want noise get peacocks, neighbor had several until finally eaten by wildlife
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We had peafowl for years, without bothering the neighbors (I asked around to make sure the birds weren’t annoying). Think it was because we only had a pair (just one male, so no trying to out-do another one with calling), and the only time our peacock made noise was during a short time in the spring.
They knew their names, came when called, and they were excellent bug control. Hated squirrels, and loved to hang out in or at one end of the arena when I was riding in it.
When I had to take our peahen to the vet clinic, I could sit in the lobby with her in my lap, her torso wrapped in a towel, and wait our turn. The vet called her “Sweetheart.”
Ours were brought from a local breeder, who picked them out for us. For all I know, he was selecting for temperament and easy care, but they were certainly not nightmare birds as peafowls are often described by others.
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Guinea fowl are cheaper, and almost as annoying.
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Guineas are far, far more annoying, speaking as someone who lives across from guineas, and previously had peafowl. No comparison, IMO.
We’ve had guineas come over here to stand in our front yard, screeching at our bay window (I guess at their reflections). They define obnoxious. Other neighbors (who had no problem with our peafowl) have also commented on the noise of the guineas. At least peafowl are beautiful, and ours were probably as companionable as chickens.
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I saw a show a few years back about how wildlife conservation officers in Texas were luring wild hogs to feed sites baited with pellets laced with birth control hormones. That apparently worked to drop the birth rate significantly.
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Guinea fowl peacocks, well that makes having coyotes not a problem
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HULPPRE Solar Motion Activated Alarm - has 3 motion sensors, flashing lights and various sound (bird, dinosaur, wolf howling, sirens, etc. - you can pick your sound or make a recording of your voice). So far, it’s been great.
Hope that link works. This is my new toy to get rid of coyotes. You can choose one of the 13 distinct sounds and set it for all the time or just at night. I move it around the property. We haven’t seen any coyotes since we chased one off about 2 weeks ago. I think they were still coming at night though. Hopefully this device will scare them off. This morning about 5:30, I set off the alarm by remote control. It made a bird sound and one of our crows was answering - cracked me up.
Thanks for all the help! Have an awesome day!
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Dinosaur. Are coyotes scared of dinosaurs? Try that. I’d stay away if I were a coyote.
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