Hunting Texas Pigs John Barsness


ranches and big oil. It is even known for big tales, especially about itself. John Steinbeck noted this tendency in his book about driving around the United States with his dog, Travels With Char- ley: “Montana seems to me to be what


Texas is known for bigness, in- cluding big hats, big hair, big


a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m from


Montana but like Texas a lot, fi nding it a particularly nice place in the win- ter, when a visitor can combine both sunshine and pig hunting. Texas is the indisputable U.S. leader in wild pigs.


Though native wild pigs lived


in North America millions of years ago, some growing to rhinoceros-size, today’s wild pigs are descended from European stock, whether wild or do- mestic. The fi rst modern pigs arrived with the fi rst white sailors, when it was a common practice to take livestock along on ships. Pigs were favored over other animals because a few could be let loose on any island with fresh water and not only survive but multiply. Any ships that later landed on the island to replenish their water supply could also take on fresh pork. The first pigs to reach modern


This spotted boar was taken at night with a Wilson AR-15 in 6.8 SPC, equipped with a Night Optics generation-3 night vision scope.


North America probably arrived with Christopher Columbus’ second expedi- tion to the Caribbean in 1493-96, but others soon followed. A captain named Diego Velasquez de Cuellar wrote in 1514 that the handful of hogs he’d left on Cuba a few years before had in- creased to “more pigs than I ever saw before in my life.” Hernando De Soto brought 13 pigs to what is now Florida in 1539. In three years they’d increased to 700, despite more than a few being barbequed. Spanish land expeditions across the South and Southwest nor- mally included a herd of pigs, and many escaped into the wild, especially if the human members of the expedition died, whether from disease or arrows. Domestic pigs were introduced to the West Coast in the 1700s, when Califor- nia belonged to Spain. Early in the 20th century it became


fashionable to import genuine wild boars from Europe, strictly for hunt- ing. These were almost always called “Russian,” no matter their origin. These were released on estates from New Hampshire to California, but pigs being pigs they eventually mingled with the abundant feral pigs already infesting the landscape. After a few generations, domestic


Mature boars tend to be more nocturnal, especially under hunting pressure. Page 32 July — September 2011


pigs soon return to the approximate shape of wild pigs, especially boars, so there’s no way to tell a pig with some wild European blood from a pig descended from Yorkshires or Poland


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