Looking like a miniature aircraft carrier riding on massive tires, the swamp buggy crawls along a field edge smashing through brush and high weeds near Lake Okeechobee in south Florida.
Instead of jets, this flattop carries a deck festooned with old automobile seats where hunters sit in comfort. One deck below, crates contain excited dogs.
A 250-pound feral boar erupts from cover. Wanting to trap the animal alive, we release dogs to chase this tusked mammal through briar thickets and dense underbrush.
Domestic hogs first came to North America with early European explorers. In 1539, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto landed near Tampa, bringing a large herd of pigs to feed his troops. Some pigs escaped into the wild and multiplied.
Today, the pigs’ descendants number in the millions and populate more than 35 states, with the highest concentrations of feral hogs found in Texas, Florida, Louisiana and California.
Many people consider feral hogs among the most dangerous mammals in North America.
Bristling with razor-sharp tusks up to 3 inches long, a wild boar can inflict serious injuries. Leaner and more muscled than barnyard pigs, boars can weigh more than 500 pounds, but average between 100 and 300 pounds. A coarse hide covering a thick shield of hardened scar tissue draped over its head and bony shoulders protects its vital organs.
With armor, a bad disposition and few natural enemies, adult boars fear nothing—except dogs.
In a good spot, hunters release one to three strike dogs, such as curs, redbones or walker hounds. They alternate dogs during a hunting day. Strike dogs sniff out the pigs and chase them, nipping the hogs’ tail or back legs to make them stop, face the pack and fight.
Once strike dogs bay a pig, hunters send in a catch dog, typically a strong-jawed pit bull, often wearing a spiked collar and Kevlar vest for protection. The catch dog grabs an ear, snout, other sensitive organ or whatever it can on an angry pig to immobilize it until the humans arrive.
After an exhilarating chase behind howling hounds and an adrenaline-pumping brawl at the bay, one or more hunters grabs the pig by its hind legs. This keeps it from moving and angles the porker’s head downward to prevent it from slashing people or dogs with its tusks.
With the pig held securely, someone kills it, customarily stabbing it with a large pig-sticker knife to avoid injuring any humans or dogs. Some people shoot the pigs with handguns.
Hogs populate every Florida county. The state allows hunters to hunt feral hogs all year on private lands. Some public properties allow people to shoot wild hogs as bonus game during other open seasons. The state even offers special hog-hunting opportunities on certain lands.
Because the highly prolific nonnative animals frequently destroy fences, eat crops and tear up wildlife habitat, many landowners welcome hog hunters onto their properties.
For more on Florida hog hunting, visit myfwc.com/hunting/wild-hog.