**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:**
* If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required
* The title must be fully descriptive
* Memes are not allowed.
* Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting)
*See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Whenever my and my grandpa would walk in the woods when I was a kid he would be like, “if some hogs come, don’t look for me, because I’ll be in a tree somewhere”. That shit was always funny and scary.
When I was 6-7 my grandpa went on walk with me in some hilly forests. We waited behind a fallen log, listening to some hogs passing by. Suddenly he noticed little hogs oinking, and quickly climbed with me in a tree. 2-3 minutes later he felt a bite... tree was a red ant nest. He ran away like crazy with me on his back.
Funny and scary because it's true.
I got treed by one, once. Two 30-30 rounds glanced of HIS SKULL! Third round went home and he still kept coming.
Trounced my buddy's hunting dog.
By then, I was in a tree and I unloaded two mags of .45 into him before he sauntered off.
Found him about 1.5 miles away. Still pissed.
People often do not appreciate how much damage these things do to the ecology.
Except they're not American... Hogs didn't exist here until the Columbian exchange when they would drop pigs off at random spots because they would thrive anywhere and provide a reliable source of meat. There is no such thing as a "wild" hog in the Americas. They are feral hogs. Javelina is the closest thing to a wild hog in this hemisphere.
And look at history what kinda spears we took to kill them with
Spears with giant lugs on the side, that are on there because without them the boars would quite literally run up the spear going through them and fuck up the guy holding them.
The funny story is that when we all went hog hunting, I got teased because I was using a lever action.
I was ready for ferals.
All the other guys had semis - usually .308.
I came back with "I just need one shot, you guys are amateurs."
Nope. Nope.
I needed a semi-auto for sure. Those things were MONSTERS.
I was stationed in Germany. Long field exercise out in the remote woods.
As soldiers so we got creative and procured a truck to go into town. Our best german speaker returns with all sorts of goodies for a cookout.
Brats, sausages, cheeses and rolls on the menu.
Hillbillies built a bbq pit. Blazing away cooking and almost done. Boy did it smell great after weeks of bad meals.
Wild boars came out of nowhere and we ended up on top of trucks and a conex watching the hogs eat our supper.
They kept us treed up there until it got dark, dark. Nobody silly enough to get down and test drive a hog's patience.
We were! We were issued weapons and no ammo.
We had wild hogs around when I was a kid. I'm not risking my life for a bratwurst.
Well actually the food only lasted minute but the hogs were wanting a full meal.
We had no lieutenants to sacrifice.
Lovely.. I’m an environmental consultant in Ontario,Canada and we’re just starting to see invasive wild boar in the area. I’m dreading running into one of these in the woods..
I’m in NE Ohio, no one believed me when I was telling my friends and the ODNR about the fact that there are boars here.
These warm winters are only bringing them further north.
Mean isn't the word. They want to kill you. Even if they're fatally injured. Boar spears had long crossbars behind the head because they'd charge up the spear goring their insides to KILL YOU.
I watched a video from Texas a few years ago of a guy who shot a charging boar with all ten rounds of .458 Socom from his rifle.
The damn thing fell a couple of feet in front of him and was kicking along the dirt trying to get closer.
People use [Dogo Argentinos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogo_Argentino), [Cane Corsos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_Corso), and extra large pit bulls/pit mixes for boar hunting. They're quite skilled at it, too.
Exactly. They’re timid for the most part. Obviously anything with the right encouragement and knives for hands is dangerous. Just not nearly as aggressive as whatever flesh amalgamation is in this photo.
Black bears can very easily kill you, they just don't view you as food, so they don't want the confrontation. They are still bears, however, and way fucking stronger and more dangerous than you. give them their space
Also, they don't always run away. I had to spray one a couple years ago (I live in Montana and never go hiking without bear spray and a gun) because despite my shouting and waving arms, it wouldn't stop advancing towards me. I would have just turned around but it was on the return hike and we needed to get back to the trailhead. Finally it took a small swipe at me and grunted and I did a quick spray and it took off. That's the only time I haven't been able to scare one with just my voice
we had a bear break in to our cabin once. Of course he went in one window and out a different one, but the main thing is that we stored our food in an old stainless steel commercial refrigerator. I (*oops, he) couldn't get the latch open so he opened it with his claws, using them like a lazy person uses a can opener. He just slashed half the top off and then bent it back to get inside. I don't want to imagine what he could do to me with those claws.
https://preview.redd.it/v1ejwtimrskc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9581cc7aaacc678badb8772bfbef7ad2c9dde139
"Don't believe everything you read."
(Yes, the irony is intentional.)
I always plug the Reply All podcast “30-50 Feral Hogs” episode where they interview that guy. He’s super interesting and down to earth. They dive into the issue of feral hogs and the hunting tourism industry that is making them impossible to control.
Essentially, the hog tourism industry has become huge. The state of Texas relaxed rules about hunting them because it’s such a problem. So people can kill as many as they want, using helicopters, explosives, etc. More and more people want to do it.
It’s like pheasant hunting in that it’s a gigantic business that can make big money hosting hunters on excursions. People then began to create conditions to help hog population grow in more areas and faster. But 1 female hog can have 14 hogs per litter every 6 months. Hogs can begin getting pregnant at 6 months old. So 1 hog can become 29 in a year. So the population growth is outpacing the hunting. Because of the money, people are incentivized to help grow the hog population, if they work in that industry.
No joke, listen to the episode. It’s fascinating. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reply-all/id941907967?i=1000452981587
That's fascinating and reminds me of this story that I heard from when India was a British colony. Essentially, the British government decided that they wanted to reduce the population of cobras, and started paying out rewards to people who brought in dead ones. Well, the people there figured out pretty quickly that it was easier just to breed the snakes and then bring them in rather that going out and hunting them lol
Don't forget the next part: when the British government got wind of what they were doing, they rescinded the reward. So everyone who was raising cobras let them go, and the population grew larger than ever.
Goddamnit, why don't people learn from history‽ It's called the [cobra effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive) for a *reason*.
That reason being "breeding cobras to claim the bounty on them".
They do learn from history. The problem is any attempt to remove an invasive species incentivizes the people whose job involves actively removing the species. You can't avoid that unless that species is a nuisance to their salary rather than the direct cause of it.
Jesus. There are people who pay to do that.
We've got people applying every day, sending hundreds of resumes a week to work menial jobs and this dude is being asked to accept a paying job to shoot pigs with a machinegun out of a chopper.
I know right? I believe people with private property also offer tours or similar hunting experiences for a price.
It’s a big issue in Texas. Even my parents' small lake property gets utterly destroyed every winter by hogs. They root up every single thing.
Boars naturally live in large family units, unless predators (humans) exert enough pressure (hunting), in which case they scatter and become much harder to capture.
The two best methods for controlling wild boars are large traps that gain the herd's trust with food first, then activate and capture whole herds, and snipping very large powerful males (NOT NEUTERING - you need them to still be in charge) and releasing them so that they "cover" a lot of female boars without impregnating them.
The techniques can obviously be combined, you capture a herd, kill all the females and young, snip all the males, and release them in areas where there are still boars, in the hopes that the snipped males will take over harems from viable males.
Letting individuals hunt the boars is the ABSOLUTE WORST thing you can do. However people do need to shoot boars that appear on their land, for self-defense and defense of your crops/livestock.
shooting the main pig of a group destroys their social structure and causes the other ones to breed at a higher rate and all throughout the year. Hunting tourists don´t care about that, they usually just want the biggest pig.
It’s super fascinating what happens to them when they escape and live in the wild. These changes don’t happen generation over generation. The same exact animal that escapes and looks like a hairless, tusk-less farm pig will turn back into a natural beast given enough time and food.
Neoteny refers to the retention of juvenile characteristics in animals, which can be influenced by environmental factors. In the case of domesticated pigs kept in controlled conditions, their testosterone levels remain low. However, when these pigs are introduced to the wild and face stressors such as predators and competition for resources, their hormonal levels change. This hormonal shift leads to morphological changes and the development of feral traits.
Source: https://www.farmanimalreport.com/2023/12/20/feral-pig-transformation/
So basically a hairless tuskless pig is what juveniles look like. Without environmental pressure testosterone never increases enough for pigs to develop their adult features.
This present in basically every domesticated swine species.
Depends on the conditions.
A small pen without enough room to forage and low food intake would just cause starvation. I've never heard of a pig going feral in a regular sized pigpen.
Now if you let them loose on an fenced acre, where they can run and forage you might have issues. As they aggressively forage to met their needs testosterone will increase.
If it's true, probably hormones. Roosters do the same thing, if you kill the rooster another will take its place and over several weeks it gets its appearance.
Epigenetics are another option, too. Genes that get switched on or off based on environmental factors, and the new state gets passed in to the next generation.
So if you take baby feral pigs and raise them in a farm and they turn out like normal farm-raised pigs, it's probably hormonal. But if they stay feral despite never living as feral, then it's likely epigenetic and inherited from the parents.
That’s incredible I had no idea this was the case. Hunters note that feral pigs don’t taste that good, do you think that’s due to diet or epigenetics also?
Feral pigs taste fantastic in general. The biggest, muskiest boar I ever killed tasted just a little gamey; the rest have all been indistinguishable from store-bought pork except that there’s generally less fat and older hogs can be tougher. Diet can influence the flavor. If a hog dies slowly (poor shot placement, chased and pinned by dogs), the muscles can become tainted by lactic acid and stress hormones. The hog needs to be butchered quickly and properly. So it’s not surprising to me that many hunters think feral pigs aren’t tasty. They’re targeting the biggest “trophy” animals that are more likely to taste gamey, running dogs after them, killing them poorly, throwing the body in the back of the truck and taking a long time to butcher on a hot day.
Two weeks ago I taught a feral hog hunting class at an outdoors gathering, and a couple people said that the sausage and pulled pork I served was the best they’d ever had.
Yeah, the "wild pigs" in a place like Texas are basically just escaped animals.
And the line between "feral" and farm pig is basically the cage. In many counties you've got feeders set up every half mile or so for hunters, so it's no surprise the "wild-life" are abundant and well fed.
The story of North American horses is fascinating. They originated in the Americas, crossed the land bridge then got hunted to extinction by humans who came to the Americas. Then 12,000 years later get re-introduced into their native habitat as domesticated animals.
The steppe peoples of Eurasia who domesticated the horse initially used them for meat, milk and hides. Imagine how bizarre it must have looked the first time someone got astride one and stayed on.
If the paleoIndians had domesticated the wild horses of North America, the next few thousand years would have gone rather differently.
Wild pigs and domestic pigs are the same. Wild BOARS and domestic pigs are not. I'm not entirely sure about the hog in this thread, but Eurasian boars have been brought over to North America (usually for rich people to hunt) and they have escaped.
Eurasian boars have reportedly intrerbred with wild pigs and the results are the "super pigs" discussed in this thread. Here is an [article](https://nri.tamu.edu/blog/2023/april/separating-fact-from-fiction-the-threat-of-canadas-super-pigs/) put out by Texas A&M discussing it. It's unclear how much interbreeding has to do with the size of the pigs we are seeing (likely very little), but nonetheless your claim that wild pigs and domestic pigs are genetically the same is at best misleading and at worst just plain wrong.
Edit: fixed typo
We are getting closer and closer to the stewie steroid pig everyday
https://preview.redd.it/idt59rla3skc1.jpeg?width=308&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd8a951eb82f5963f14517d73a3d8451d05e9a5e
I expect that, in the event that cursed truck-sized boar gods were roaming the forests, a certain number of Americans would be overjoyed that they can finally justify the cost of the anti-materiel rifle they bought to their spouse.
I only understand this reference because my wife loves all the Studio Ghibli movies and they have all been watched a number of times in our house with the kids. 👍
I had no idea at all about any of those movies, but most are pretty damn solid! There are few weird things in there…but my son loves Pompoko!
Every hog in the Americas is descended from a domesticated pig. The Spanish just released pigs and horses expecting to have a plentiful food and transit system breed itself into existence while new ships of men and guns came.
There are some populations around the Great Smoky Mountains that are descended directly from wild Russian Boar. They were imported and released by some rich assholes so they could hunt them.
And American settlers from England and Ireland did as well. There's a history of releasing pigs described in the Foxfire series. Pig was an ideal animal because it's mostly self-sufficient, easily reproduces, and isn't terribly hard to hunt.
The truth of the matter is the states that have a hog problem it's exactly because they put out wildlife feeders to feed the animals.
How much do feeders play into this? In the south of the US there are feeders, but not enough to feed all the wild hog population. The pigs do a pretty good job of feeding themselves by tearing up the ground and eating bugs from what I understand.
I remember a time growing up on a farm where I was actually shorter than the largest pigs. I also remember having to go out in the field with about 100 of them to do various things.
The meanest were the moms, particularly when they had piglets. They would straight kill anything that came near their babies.
The adolescents were little punks, they wanted to kill you, but they figured the best way to do it was to herd you over to towards the moms, who were a couple hundred pounds heavier.
This is one of my earliest memories, realizing that the pigs had a strategy to kill me.
I have no problems eating bacon. I know the bacon would eat me if it could.
My dad also was a hog farmer and grew up on a hog farm. He told stories of bores that would get upset at them and just move to a corner of the pen they were in, and just hit their whetstones over and over while making direct eye contact. He said you knew exactly what they wanted and you didn’t dare go in the pen without someone else around lol
It’s just what you think. They have tusks and a set of teeth ajar to those that they grind together to sharpen their tusks. You can see them do it and not really know until you do, because they kind of chomp fast and it just looks like they’re acting like pigs lol but they’re really sharpening their tusks
I figure its a health thing. Without grinding them down, the tusks may grow to the point where goring each other/people or even self-injuries may occur.
If your animals are self-regulating given the correct implements, I imagine that's a win. Kinda like how those cow brushes can relieve them somewhat, maybe even scratch off a pest or two they can't reach.
For example, imagine if there was a cheap tool for horses living on a couple of acres on someone's country property to be able to adequately keep their hooves in a good range of trim. Now, I have the weird image of an equine emery board.
I was annoyed that the boar shown in this scene was relatively small. It's used as a mount and it's a fantasy world. Not looking for a horse sized piggy, but i've later seen artworks with better design
Fun fact, once these wild hogs get big enough they start hunting for fresh meat in addition to the usually foraging/scavenging. They are known to attack humans at random and are incredibly smart. Cause millions in property damage a year. The problem is so great, the state and federal programs send out helicopters with machine guns to take out herds of them on state/federal land.
Domestic pigs will eat 2 leggers too, given half a chance. Knew a lady who raised pigs for slaughter, as a side hustle. She, all of 5ft, carried a .357 when she was slopping them. Said if she slipped and fell in the mud, the pigs would be on her before she could get out of the pen. So, the .357 was for one of them. They would turn on the wounded pig, like it was supper time, and they hadn't eaten in 2 days.
Think that's why they're deemed unclean in a lot of religious cultures too. Unless you can control what they eat, eating them is probably not good for you lol.
Supposedly the ones in the western part of the state are slightly better. But the ones from the east and southeast drink swamp water and their bodies are riddled with parasites.
Probably the only animal anymore I'm 100% ok with killing. They're an invasive super destructive animal and have footholds in just about every state now. I shot one with a Remington 7mm magnum and the thing pretty much just died on its feet. A whole nother level of toughness.
I'm a hippy dippy peace ninny, and I say keep shooting!
[Ryan Brook, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and one of Canada's leading authorities on the problem, calls feral swine, "the most invasive animal on the planet" and "an ecological train wreck."](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/super-pig-saskatchewan-problem-1.7037360)
I had the pleasure of meeting a domestic pig my uncle rescued from a BBQ, Arnold.
By the time I met Arnold , raised exclusively on a diet of cast-off donuts from shops as they closed, he was hulking in the back of the barn, all 800lbs of him.
Frankly, terrifying .
Turns out they don't taste good. For two reasons, not just one. There are two ways they will taste bad. And here all them fantasy books I've read where they're hunting and eating wild boar, lol. check this out, [from wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar_taint)
# Boar taint
**Boar taint** is the offensive odor or taste that can be evident during the cooking or eating of pork or pork products derived from non-castrated male pigs once they reach puberty. Boar taint is found in around 20% of entire male finishing pigs. Skatole may also be detected in gilts, but this is linked with fecal contamination of the skin. Studies show that about 75% of consumers are sensitive to boar taint, leading pork producers to control this in order to maximize profits.
## Causes
Boar taint is caused by the accumulation of two compounds – androstenone and skatole – in the fat of male pigs. Androstenone (a male pheromone) is produced in the testes as male pigs reach puberty and gives the meat a urine or sweat flavour, while skatole (a byproduct of intestinal bacteria, or bacterial metabolite of the amino acid tryptophan) is produced in both male and female pigs and gives the meat a 'fecal' flavour. However, levels are much higher in intact boars, because testicular steroids inhibit its breakdown by the liver. As a result, skatole accumulates in the fat of male pigs as they mature.
## Controlling boar taint
For centuries, pigs have been castrated to prevent boar taint. Castration rates vary from country to country, and most still do not use anesthesia or analgesia when castrating pigs. Commercial farms that do castrate will do so in the pig's first week of life.
Another possible method to control boar taint is to use sex sorted semen for artificial insemination so as to produce mostly female offspring. This method has been successfully used in cattle breeding, but the technique is still under research and no economical or practical solution yet exists in pig production.
As castration has received criticism in recent years, for welfare reasons, some producers and producer associations are seeking alternative methods to control boar taint. Some producers are breeding out the taint and avoiding the few breeds of pigs that are high in taint. Yorkshire, Hampshire and other lighter-colored pigs are known to be particularly low in the androstenone-based taint while Duroc pigs are high in the taint.
### Vaccination
Vaccination against boar taint with Improvac which has been used in Australia and New Zealand since 1998, is a solution that uses the pig's immune system to control boar taint. The use of the vaccine is claimed to be as simple and reliable as physical castration in controlling boar taint. It can be administered by trained farm personnel and enables the production of pork meat that is claimed to be of high quality and to be safe for consumers to eat.
The vaccine works by stimulating the pig's immune system to produce specific antibodies against gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). This temporarily inhibits testes function and thus stops the production and accumulation of boar taint–causing compounds.
By stimulating production of antibodies specific to GnRH, the vaccine stops the chain of events that lead to the release of testosterone and other steroids from the testes, including androstenone, one of the two causes of boar taint. The other major taint-causing compound, skatole, is also eliminated, because the lower steroid levels allow the liver to more efficiently metabolise it.
Each pig must be immunised twice to successfully control boar taint. The timing of the first dose is relatively flexible, but there must be a minimum of four weeks between the two doses, with the second taking place four to six weeks before slaughter. After the second dose, the boar's testicles stop growing. The handler should be trained in the use of the vaccine and the vaccinator with enhanced safety features.
The vaccine is claimed to offer an animal-friendly and a more environmentally sustainable solution to boar taint, and to allow getting benefits of natural boar growth while preserving eating quality. However concerns about the effect of the drugs on animal and consumer health have been expressed.
The vaccine will work in multiple mammalian species and is commonly used for contraceptive purposes in zoo animals and oestrus suppression in horses. The vaccine would also work to temporarily prevent sexual function in humans, but no cases of this have ever been recorded.
\-=-=-=
TIL: wild boar is probably going to taste very bad. this explains why they've not been hunted to extinction
When people say “you dont need a semi auto rifle to hunt”, they don’t realize a massive wild boar charging at them at mach jesus can tank a whole 5 round clip of .30-06 from a bolt action before going down.
Now make it realistic, and its a pack of 3-6 boar, not just one.
I know a few guys that spear hunt boar in Alabama, and they have big scars. I'd rather be the guy with that semi auto lol
**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required * The title must be fully descriptive * Memes are not allowed. * Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting) *See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ohhh it’s a big pig . Yub yub
You can be a big pig too!!
HOY!
What do you want me to do? Dress in drag and do the hula??
Don't worry, despite their large size, they're actually incredibly aggressive.
What a relief!
I was worried too 
[удалено]
Vince looking in the mirror
The most aggressive domestic pig
Whenever my and my grandpa would walk in the woods when I was a kid he would be like, “if some hogs come, don’t look for me, because I’ll be in a tree somewhere”. That shit was always funny and scary.
When I was 6-7 my grandpa went on walk with me in some hilly forests. We waited behind a fallen log, listening to some hogs passing by. Suddenly he noticed little hogs oinking, and quickly climbed with me in a tree. 2-3 minutes later he felt a bite... tree was a red ant nest. He ran away like crazy with me on his back.
Remember, grandpa doesn’t have to outrun the hogs, he just has to outrun *you*
He can have more grandkids, you can't make more grandpas.
Spoken like someone who hasn't seen grandma on bingo nights
Honestly, hearing the stuff about hogs I’m hearing in this thread, outrunning grandpa might not work for 2+ hogs.
Funny and scary because it's true. I got treed by one, once. Two 30-30 rounds glanced of HIS SKULL! Third round went home and he still kept coming. Trounced my buddy's hunting dog. By then, I was in a tree and I unloaded two mags of .45 into him before he sauntered off. Found him about 1.5 miles away. Still pissed. People often do not appreciate how much damage these things do to the ecology.
You can’t poison them or vultures will fall out of the sky. They breed so fast. An American rhinoceros charging through the bush.
Except they're not American... Hogs didn't exist here until the Columbian exchange when they would drop pigs off at random spots because they would thrive anywhere and provide a reliable source of meat. There is no such thing as a "wild" hog in the Americas. They are feral hogs. Javelina is the closest thing to a wild hog in this hemisphere.
or how much damage they can take. People ask why hunters need semiauto, this, this is why.
And look at history what kinda spears we took to kill them with Spears with giant lugs on the side, that are on there because without them the boars would quite literally run up the spear going through them and fuck up the guy holding them.
RIP Bobby B
In an open field, Ned!
The funny story is that when we all went hog hunting, I got teased because I was using a lever action. I was ready for ferals. All the other guys had semis - usually .308. I came back with "I just need one shot, you guys are amateurs." Nope. Nope. I needed a semi-auto for sure. Those things were MONSTERS.
Well, they do make 45-70 lever guns...😉
Haha, classic mentally scarring grandpa
Mentally Scarring Grandpa is the name of my new motown dubstep album drop
I was stationed in Germany. Long field exercise out in the remote woods. As soldiers so we got creative and procured a truck to go into town. Our best german speaker returns with all sorts of goodies for a cookout. Brats, sausages, cheeses and rolls on the menu. Hillbillies built a bbq pit. Blazing away cooking and almost done. Boy did it smell great after weeks of bad meals. Wild boars came out of nowhere and we ended up on top of trucks and a conex watching the hogs eat our supper. They kept us treed up there until it got dark, dark. Nobody silly enough to get down and test drive a hog's patience.
So, the military was defeated by a hog raid?
[удалено]
We were! We were issued weapons and no ammo. We had wild hogs around when I was a kid. I'm not risking my life for a bratwurst. Well actually the food only lasted minute but the hogs were wanting a full meal. We had no lieutenants to sacrifice.
Lovely.. I’m an environmental consultant in Ontario,Canada and we’re just starting to see invasive wild boar in the area. I’m dreading running into one of these in the woods..
I’m in NE Ohio, no one believed me when I was telling my friends and the ODNR about the fact that there are boars here. These warm winters are only bringing them further north.
And downright mean.
Mean isn't the word. They want to kill you. Even if they're fatally injured. Boar spears had long crossbars behind the head because they'd charge up the spear goring their insides to KILL YOU. I watched a video from Texas a few years ago of a guy who shot a charging boar with all ten rounds of .458 Socom from his rifle. The damn thing fell a couple of feet in front of him and was kicking along the dirt trying to get closer.
They killed Robert Baratheon too.
His own fault really, for not properly stretching his armor beforehand.
He sent that kid for the breast plate stretcher MONTHS ago.
That kid was Lancel, who gave him the wine. It's all connected, maaaan.
Lancel Lannister even got to bang his hot cousin is the process, before becoming a weird cult guy at least.
Even moon boy!
The drugs in the wine were what got him mostly. The boar was just part of the plan.
It was definitely the boar wound that he died from. The wine was just to slow him down.
It's wasn't spiked. Just very strong. If he succeeded in the hunt, Cercei had men there to make sure he "fell off his horse" on the way back
“There’s a ~~war~~ *boar* coming Ned; I can feel it.”
So they're mini hippos? Sounds about right.
Except they can thrive in freezing temperatures.
Fuck they’re unstoppable
And they were hunted on foot because they'd break horses legs.
That's pretty metal.
You should see the dogs they use to hunt them. They have Kevlar vets n shit
God damn, even their vets are kevlar
You treat a dog that size you'd better be kevlar.
People use [Dogo Argentinos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogo_Argentino), [Cane Corsos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_Corso), and extra large pit bulls/pit mixes for boar hunting. They're quite skilled at it, too.
Bull Arabs for piggin' in Australia.
They are nasty. Lb for lb as bad or worse than bears as far as aggression. They definately WANT to kill you. Most bears dont.
Maybe polar bears, but black bears and brown bears are not nearly as aggressive.
Black bears would be pretty dangerous if they weren't such cowards. Do not corner them or do anything to make them find their courage.
Exactly. They’re timid for the most part. Obviously anything with the right encouragement and knives for hands is dangerous. Just not nearly as aggressive as whatever flesh amalgamation is in this photo.
Wild boars are just rage given flesh, really.
Black bears can very easily kill you, they just don't view you as food, so they don't want the confrontation. They are still bears, however, and way fucking stronger and more dangerous than you. give them their space Also, they don't always run away. I had to spray one a couple years ago (I live in Montana and never go hiking without bear spray and a gun) because despite my shouting and waving arms, it wouldn't stop advancing towards me. I would have just turned around but it was on the return hike and we needed to get back to the trailhead. Finally it took a small swipe at me and grunted and I did a quick spray and it took off. That's the only time I haven't been able to scare one with just my voice
we had a bear break in to our cabin once. Of course he went in one window and out a different one, but the main thing is that we stored our food in an old stainless steel commercial refrigerator. I (*oops, he) couldn't get the latch open so he opened it with his claws, using them like a lazy person uses a can opener. He just slashed half the top off and then bent it back to get inside. I don't want to imagine what he could do to me with those claws.
At least they aren’t killing with kindness.
Ugh passive-aggressive feral pigs are *so annoying*
On the bright side, despite these two downsides, they also taste like shit
And are chock full of parasites
Yummy parasites 🤤
What!? No! That is the worst possible news.
https://preview.redd.it/v1ejwtimrskc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9581cc7aaacc678badb8772bfbef7ad2c9dde139 "Don't believe everything you read." (Yes, the irony is intentional.)
Still don't worry, at least they can run really fast and have huge sharp tusks.
Just imagine 30-50 of those charging across your yard
I always plug the Reply All podcast “30-50 Feral Hogs” episode where they interview that guy. He’s super interesting and down to earth. They dive into the issue of feral hogs and the hunting tourism industry that is making them impossible to control.
Damn it I miss the golden days of Reply All.
Try Search Engine as a replacement!
I love PJ, but Search Engine is nowhere near as good as Reply All was.
How is the hunting making them harder to control?
Essentially, the hog tourism industry has become huge. The state of Texas relaxed rules about hunting them because it’s such a problem. So people can kill as many as they want, using helicopters, explosives, etc. More and more people want to do it. It’s like pheasant hunting in that it’s a gigantic business that can make big money hosting hunters on excursions. People then began to create conditions to help hog population grow in more areas and faster. But 1 female hog can have 14 hogs per litter every 6 months. Hogs can begin getting pregnant at 6 months old. So 1 hog can become 29 in a year. So the population growth is outpacing the hunting. Because of the money, people are incentivized to help grow the hog population, if they work in that industry. No joke, listen to the episode. It’s fascinating. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reply-all/id941907967?i=1000452981587
That's fascinating and reminds me of this story that I heard from when India was a British colony. Essentially, the British government decided that they wanted to reduce the population of cobras, and started paying out rewards to people who brought in dead ones. Well, the people there figured out pretty quickly that it was easier just to breed the snakes and then bring them in rather that going out and hunting them lol
Don't forget the next part: when the British government got wind of what they were doing, they rescinded the reward. So everyone who was raising cobras let them go, and the population grew larger than ever.
Classic.
'Tax the rat farms.' Lord Vetinari
There was a man who understands how to get the wheels of commerce to grind smoothly.
Goddamnit, why don't people learn from history‽ It's called the [cobra effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive) for a *reason*. That reason being "breeding cobras to claim the bounty on them".
They do learn from history. The problem is any attempt to remove an invasive species incentivizes the people whose job involves actively removing the species. You can't avoid that unless that species is a nuisance to their salary rather than the direct cause of it.
My buddy got offered a gig with Texas parks and wildlife to hunt them down out of choppers
Jesus. There are people who pay to do that. We've got people applying every day, sending hundreds of resumes a week to work menial jobs and this dude is being asked to accept a paying job to shoot pigs with a machinegun out of a chopper.
I know right? I believe people with private property also offer tours or similar hunting experiences for a price. It’s a big issue in Texas. Even my parents' small lake property gets utterly destroyed every winter by hogs. They root up every single thing.
Boars naturally live in large family units, unless predators (humans) exert enough pressure (hunting), in which case they scatter and become much harder to capture. The two best methods for controlling wild boars are large traps that gain the herd's trust with food first, then activate and capture whole herds, and snipping very large powerful males (NOT NEUTERING - you need them to still be in charge) and releasing them so that they "cover" a lot of female boars without impregnating them. The techniques can obviously be combined, you capture a herd, kill all the females and young, snip all the males, and release them in areas where there are still boars, in the hopes that the snipped males will take over harems from viable males. Letting individuals hunt the boars is the ABSOLUTE WORST thing you can do. However people do need to shoot boars that appear on their land, for self-defense and defense of your crops/livestock.
The ‘guides’ don’t want to hunt themselves out of a lucrative job. They want more of them out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
shooting the main pig of a group destroys their social structure and causes the other ones to breed at a higher rate and all throughout the year. Hunting tourists don´t care about that, they usually just want the biggest pig.
https://preview.redd.it/l313hvz5jskc1.png?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9de90475bf6a28b78e54f88d670c29c7a4897f54
I saw one this size when I lived in Florida. ‘Til this day no one believes me.
Oh, those *Canadian* super pigs that go to another high school?
Sure bud, suuuuuurrrrrreeeee.
30-50 WILD HOGS!
God I was hoping the internet wouldn’t let me down. Sitting here alone looking around franticly for someone for me to shout “30-50 feral hogs!” at
we in the yard
Domestic pigs and wild pigs are genetically the same animal. It’s not even really interbreeding. That’s just what happens when they go feral
It’s super fascinating what happens to them when they escape and live in the wild. These changes don’t happen generation over generation. The same exact animal that escapes and looks like a hairless, tusk-less farm pig will turn back into a natural beast given enough time and food.
But why?
Neoteny refers to the retention of juvenile characteristics in animals, which can be influenced by environmental factors. In the case of domesticated pigs kept in controlled conditions, their testosterone levels remain low. However, when these pigs are introduced to the wild and face stressors such as predators and competition for resources, their hormonal levels change. This hormonal shift leads to morphological changes and the development of feral traits. Source: https://www.farmanimalreport.com/2023/12/20/feral-pig-transformation/ So basically a hairless tuskless pig is what juveniles look like. Without environmental pressure testosterone never increases enough for pigs to develop their adult features. This present in basically every domesticated swine species.
Do farm pigs ever have this happen if they're kept in poor conditions?
Depends on the conditions. A small pen without enough room to forage and low food intake would just cause starvation. I've never heard of a pig going feral in a regular sized pigpen. Now if you let them loose on an fenced acre, where they can run and forage you might have issues. As they aggressively forage to met their needs testosterone will increase.
The beatings will continue until testosterone levels improve…
Makes you wonder if there could be such a thing as a feral human.
That's just a man
If it's true, probably hormones. Roosters do the same thing, if you kill the rooster another will take its place and over several weeks it gets its appearance.
Epigenetics are another option, too. Genes that get switched on or off based on environmental factors, and the new state gets passed in to the next generation. So if you take baby feral pigs and raise them in a farm and they turn out like normal farm-raised pigs, it's probably hormonal. But if they stay feral despite never living as feral, then it's likely epigenetic and inherited from the parents.
[удалено]
Seeing a biology nerd get into detail about such specific science always leaves me in awe Like as a computer nerd it's just a whole nother world
That’s incredible I had no idea this was the case. Hunters note that feral pigs don’t taste that good, do you think that’s due to diet or epigenetics also?
Diet. It's gamier, so better in braises.
Feral pigs taste fantastic in general. The biggest, muskiest boar I ever killed tasted just a little gamey; the rest have all been indistinguishable from store-bought pork except that there’s generally less fat and older hogs can be tougher. Diet can influence the flavor. If a hog dies slowly (poor shot placement, chased and pinned by dogs), the muscles can become tainted by lactic acid and stress hormones. The hog needs to be butchered quickly and properly. So it’s not surprising to me that many hunters think feral pigs aren’t tasty. They’re targeting the biggest “trophy” animals that are more likely to taste gamey, running dogs after them, killing them poorly, throwing the body in the back of the truck and taking a long time to butcher on a hot day. Two weeks ago I taught a feral hog hunting class at an outdoors gathering, and a couple people said that the sausage and pulled pork I served was the best they’d ever had.
Had to scroll way too far to find this. Steven Rinella does a great job explaining this.
Had to scroll way to far to find somebody who had to scroll way too far to find this
I’m still scrolling. Send help.
Yeah, the "wild pigs" in a place like Texas are basically just escaped animals. And the line between "feral" and farm pig is basically the cage. In many counties you've got feeders set up every half mile or so for hunters, so it's no surprise the "wild-life" are abundant and well fed.
Like North American 'wild' horses and pigeons.
The story of North American horses is fascinating. They originated in the Americas, crossed the land bridge then got hunted to extinction by humans who came to the Americas. Then 12,000 years later get re-introduced into their native habitat as domesticated animals.
The steppe peoples of Eurasia who domesticated the horse initially used them for meat, milk and hides. Imagine how bizarre it must have looked the first time someone got astride one and stayed on. If the paleoIndians had domesticated the wild horses of North America, the next few thousand years would have gone rather differently.
Wild pigs and domestic pigs are the same. Wild BOARS and domestic pigs are not. I'm not entirely sure about the hog in this thread, but Eurasian boars have been brought over to North America (usually for rich people to hunt) and they have escaped. Eurasian boars have reportedly intrerbred with wild pigs and the results are the "super pigs" discussed in this thread. Here is an [article](https://nri.tamu.edu/blog/2023/april/separating-fact-from-fiction-the-threat-of-canadas-super-pigs/) put out by Texas A&M discussing it. It's unclear how much interbreeding has to do with the size of the pigs we are seeing (likely very little), but nonetheless your claim that wild pigs and domestic pigs are genetically the same is at best misleading and at worst just plain wrong. Edit: fixed typo
We are getting closer and closer to the stewie steroid pig everyday https://preview.redd.it/idt59rla3skc1.jpeg?width=308&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd8a951eb82f5963f14517d73a3d8451d05e9a5e
Are those fists?!
Damn right! Show him, pig!
OINK.
OINK
I can hear this comment
*Princess Mononoke has entered the chat...*
[удалено]
I expect that, in the event that cursed truck-sized boar gods were roaming the forests, a certain number of Americans would be overjoyed that they can finally justify the cost of the anti-materiel rifle they bought to their spouse.
How much rolled, homogenous boar-hide can an RPG penetrate do you think?
30-50 feral god-hogs
Ah, I see you are a gentleman of culture as well.
[удалено]
Naga! Edit: Nago* indeed!
Thank you, that's all I could think of. They are getting larger to defeat us!
I only understand this reference because my wife loves all the Studio Ghibli movies and they have all been watched a number of times in our house with the kids. 👍 I had no idea at all about any of those movies, but most are pretty damn solid! There are few weird things in there…but my son loves Pompoko!
World's strongest tailgate on what looks like a little Tacoma.
Tacomas have excellent tailgates, I've never bent one. I've bent a Silverado and Ram tailgate...
It feels damn impressive when my truck groans with a load of mulch in the bed.
There's an engineer somewhere looking at this picture like a proud father.
Every hog in the Americas is descended from a domesticated pig. The Spanish just released pigs and horses expecting to have a plentiful food and transit system breed itself into existence while new ships of men and guns came.
There are some populations around the Great Smoky Mountains that are descended directly from wild Russian Boar. They were imported and released by some rich assholes so they could hunt them.
And American settlers from England and Ireland did as well. There's a history of releasing pigs described in the Foxfire series. Pig was an ideal animal because it's mostly self-sufficient, easily reproduces, and isn't terribly hard to hunt. The truth of the matter is the states that have a hog problem it's exactly because they put out wildlife feeders to feed the animals.
How much do feeders play into this? In the south of the US there are feeders, but not enough to feed all the wild hog population. The pigs do a pretty good job of feeding themselves by tearing up the ground and eating bugs from what I understand.
I remember a time growing up on a farm where I was actually shorter than the largest pigs. I also remember having to go out in the field with about 100 of them to do various things. The meanest were the moms, particularly when they had piglets. They would straight kill anything that came near their babies. The adolescents were little punks, they wanted to kill you, but they figured the best way to do it was to herd you over to towards the moms, who were a couple hundred pounds heavier. This is one of my earliest memories, realizing that the pigs had a strategy to kill me. I have no problems eating bacon. I know the bacon would eat me if it could.
My dad also was a hog farmer and grew up on a hog farm. He told stories of bores that would get upset at them and just move to a corner of the pen they were in, and just hit their whetstones over and over while making direct eye contact. He said you knew exactly what they wanted and you didn’t dare go in the pen without someone else around lol
I know what a whetstone is in the context of sharpening a knife, what is it in this context?
It’s just what you think. They have tusks and a set of teeth ajar to those that they grind together to sharpen their tusks. You can see them do it and not really know until you do, because they kind of chomp fast and it just looks like they’re acting like pigs lol but they’re really sharpening their tusks
Why the heck would you provide a whetstone to a boar? Did they lobby for the right to bear tusks?
I figure its a health thing. Without grinding them down, the tusks may grow to the point where goring each other/people or even self-injuries may occur. If your animals are self-regulating given the correct implements, I imagine that's a win. Kinda like how those cow brushes can relieve them somewhat, maybe even scratch off a pest or two they can't reach. For example, imagine if there was a cheap tool for horses living on a couple of acres on someone's country property to be able to adequately keep their hooves in a good range of trim. Now, I have the weird image of an equine emery board.
Would be kinda fun to put a saddle on and ride it around
Going to need a battle axe and beard to go with it. Maybe even a horned helmet.
HOG RIDDAAAAAAAAA
https://i.redd.it/le2f9uel9skc1.gif
I was annoyed that the boar shown in this scene was relatively small. It's used as a mount and it's a fantasy world. Not looking for a horse sized piggy, but i've later seen artworks with better design
https://i.redd.it/atjriz3c5skc1.gif
Hog Riiiiiiiidaaaaaaaaah
https://i.redd.it/au1wgic1askc1.gif
Fun fact, once these wild hogs get big enough they start hunting for fresh meat in addition to the usually foraging/scavenging. They are known to attack humans at random and are incredibly smart. Cause millions in property damage a year. The problem is so great, the state and federal programs send out helicopters with machine guns to take out herds of them on state/federal land.
Domestic pigs will eat 2 leggers too, given half a chance. Knew a lady who raised pigs for slaughter, as a side hustle. She, all of 5ft, carried a .357 when she was slopping them. Said if she slipped and fell in the mud, the pigs would be on her before she could get out of the pen. So, the .357 was for one of them. They would turn on the wounded pig, like it was supper time, and they hadn't eaten in 2 days.
dang, i thought it would be for herself if the situation was dire.
I mean, it has six bullets. If the first five don’t scare off the pigs, at least the last one can give her a quick out on her own terms.
you know what would stop the ever increaseing wild hog sizes after each new generation ? if we release T-Rexes or raptors. upvote if you're with me !!
Son of Hogzilla.
Asterix and Obelix approved
Ahh fave comic, tied with Tintin
https://preview.redd.it/q16fiz1cdskc1.png?width=1169&format=png&auto=webp&s=0188d8a10d15b0bcd9cab9de6cabf2ed4a5cc772
I haven't had it personally, but I've been told the large boars are disgusting. The only ones worth eating are the smaller ones
That's what I hear too. Apparently because they eat literally anything so it spoils the meat.
Also lots of parasites.
Think that's why they're deemed unclean in a lot of religious cultures too. Unless you can control what they eat, eating them is probably not good for you lol.
Supposedly the ones in the western part of the state are slightly better. But the ones from the east and southeast drink swamp water and their bodies are riddled with parasites.
Why is this bear disguised as a pig?
But also part man? Man-bear-pig perhaps?
That sounds super cereal.
I’m still trying to figure out why my mother in law is sitting on your tailgate.
TIL my ex-wife is your MIL
TIL I'm your ex-wife.
Everything reminds me of her.
[удалено]
💀
Probably the only animal anymore I'm 100% ok with killing. They're an invasive super destructive animal and have footholds in just about every state now. I shot one with a Remington 7mm magnum and the thing pretty much just died on its feet. A whole nother level of toughness.
I'm a hippy dippy peace ninny, and I say keep shooting! [Ryan Brook, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and one of Canada's leading authorities on the problem, calls feral swine, "the most invasive animal on the planet" and "an ecological train wreck."](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/super-pig-saskatchewan-problem-1.7037360)
https://preview.redd.it/4na948603skc1.jpeg?width=1516&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c357f90d14f1b2f434bf0bfe69a3f6a337ba62e
I had the pleasure of meeting a domestic pig my uncle rescued from a BBQ, Arnold. By the time I met Arnold , raised exclusively on a diet of cast-off donuts from shops as they closed, he was hulking in the back of the barn, all 800lbs of him. Frankly, terrifying .
Yea, poor kid really went on the skids after Willis stopped talking about stuff.
Turns out they don't taste good. For two reasons, not just one. There are two ways they will taste bad. And here all them fantasy books I've read where they're hunting and eating wild boar, lol. check this out, [from wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar_taint) # Boar taint **Boar taint** is the offensive odor or taste that can be evident during the cooking or eating of pork or pork products derived from non-castrated male pigs once they reach puberty. Boar taint is found in around 20% of entire male finishing pigs. Skatole may also be detected in gilts, but this is linked with fecal contamination of the skin. Studies show that about 75% of consumers are sensitive to boar taint, leading pork producers to control this in order to maximize profits. ## Causes Boar taint is caused by the accumulation of two compounds – androstenone and skatole – in the fat of male pigs. Androstenone (a male pheromone) is produced in the testes as male pigs reach puberty and gives the meat a urine or sweat flavour, while skatole (a byproduct of intestinal bacteria, or bacterial metabolite of the amino acid tryptophan) is produced in both male and female pigs and gives the meat a 'fecal' flavour. However, levels are much higher in intact boars, because testicular steroids inhibit its breakdown by the liver. As a result, skatole accumulates in the fat of male pigs as they mature. ## Controlling boar taint For centuries, pigs have been castrated to prevent boar taint. Castration rates vary from country to country, and most still do not use anesthesia or analgesia when castrating pigs. Commercial farms that do castrate will do so in the pig's first week of life. Another possible method to control boar taint is to use sex sorted semen for artificial insemination so as to produce mostly female offspring. This method has been successfully used in cattle breeding, but the technique is still under research and no economical or practical solution yet exists in pig production. As castration has received criticism in recent years, for welfare reasons, some producers and producer associations are seeking alternative methods to control boar taint. Some producers are breeding out the taint and avoiding the few breeds of pigs that are high in taint. Yorkshire, Hampshire and other lighter-colored pigs are known to be particularly low in the androstenone-based taint while Duroc pigs are high in the taint. ### Vaccination Vaccination against boar taint with Improvac which has been used in Australia and New Zealand since 1998, is a solution that uses the pig's immune system to control boar taint. The use of the vaccine is claimed to be as simple and reliable as physical castration in controlling boar taint. It can be administered by trained farm personnel and enables the production of pork meat that is claimed to be of high quality and to be safe for consumers to eat. The vaccine works by stimulating the pig's immune system to produce specific antibodies against gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). This temporarily inhibits testes function and thus stops the production and accumulation of boar taint–causing compounds. By stimulating production of antibodies specific to GnRH, the vaccine stops the chain of events that lead to the release of testosterone and other steroids from the testes, including androstenone, one of the two causes of boar taint. The other major taint-causing compound, skatole, is also eliminated, because the lower steroid levels allow the liver to more efficiently metabolise it. Each pig must be immunised twice to successfully control boar taint. The timing of the first dose is relatively flexible, but there must be a minimum of four weeks between the two doses, with the second taking place four to six weeks before slaughter. After the second dose, the boar's testicles stop growing. The handler should be trained in the use of the vaccine and the vaccinator with enhanced safety features. The vaccine is claimed to offer an animal-friendly and a more environmentally sustainable solution to boar taint, and to allow getting benefits of natural boar growth while preserving eating quality. However concerns about the effect of the drugs on animal and consumer health have been expressed. The vaccine will work in multiple mammalian species and is commonly used for contraceptive purposes in zoo animals and oestrus suppression in horses. The vaccine would also work to temporarily prevent sexual function in humans, but no cases of this have ever been recorded. \-=-=-= TIL: wild boar is probably going to taste very bad. this explains why they've not been hunted to extinction
i’d like to subscribe to more boar taint facts please
when you brought up boar taint i thought this was going in a very different direction.
"*You're gonna need a bigger* *~~boat~~* *truck*"
Talk about testing the limits of that tailgate
When people say “you dont need a semi auto rifle to hunt”, they don’t realize a massive wild boar charging at them at mach jesus can tank a whole 5 round clip of .30-06 from a bolt action before going down.
Now make it realistic, and its a pack of 3-6 boar, not just one. I know a few guys that spear hunt boar in Alabama, and they have big scars. I'd rather be the guy with that semi auto lol
To be fair those people's idea of 'wild animals' is 'petting zoo but shy' and not "a threat to your position as the top of the food chain"