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Article published Sep 17, 2008 Hog wild in Cades Cove; Park trying to control Smokies' hog population
By Iva Butler of The Daily Times Staff
Since imported European wild boars escaped from a fenced North Carolina hunting preserve in 1920, they have called the Smoky Mountains home.
Currently the wild hog population throughout the Great Smokies National Park is estimated at 500 to 1,000, according to Park Information Officer Nancy Gray.
"The Park has had a wild hog management program since the mid-1970s to try and control the population," Gray said. "There is no way we will ever remove all the wild hogs. They are extremely prolific at reproduction. There is no distinct breeding time for wild hogs, so they can breed throughout the year. Hogs normally have two litters a year and a normal litter is five but they can have up to nine piglets.
"They are very prolific and in the terrain of the Park it is hard to restrict them. We feel we are holding the hog population in check."
European wild boars were imported in 1912 from Germany to a hunting preserve at Hooper's Bald in North Carolina, which is on Cherohala Skyway in Cherokee National Forest about 15 miles southwest of the Smokies.
After being imported in 1912, "the wild hogs multiplied in that location and escaped to the mountains in 1920. On the way they interbred with feral pigs (wild domestic pigs) and the resulting stock looks like the wild pigs. They have tusks, a mane and dark, hairy fur," Gray said.
The average weight for males is 125 pounds.
Damage Park resources
The exotic species has a detrimental effect on Park resources. Pigs compete with native wildlife for food, destroy the habitat of other small mammals and eat wildflowers and other plants, some of which are rare, Gray said.
A skittish animal, wild hogs avoid human contact whenever possible. They are mainly nocturnal, but Park visitors can experience rare glimpses of the hogs once in awhile. About 6 p.m. Friday a Daily Times photographer got a rare shot of a family of three wild hogs, a mother and two offspring, running across a field in Cades Cove.
"Cades Cove is an ideal spot for wild hogs for several reasons. One is that they enjoy damp areas where they can do their wallowing behavior. They have no sweat glands so they need to find areas where they can cool off," she said.
There are several areas in the flood plain and wetlands in Cades Cove where the hogs can wallow.
The wallowing creates depressions, which can cause erosion problems. Also, wild hogs carry bacteria, which can wind up in the streams and wetlands near where they wallow.
They use their snouts to root for food -- plants, rhizomes and grubs. Areas where the wild hogs have rooted look like a rototiller has been at work, Gray said.
Basically wild hogs will eat almost anything -- flowering plants, grubs, snakes, vertebrates, bird eggs and salamanders.
However, their mainstay food is hard mast crops -- any kind of nuts, such as acorns, hickory nuts and walnuts.
Cades Cove is a prime area at this time of year because the acorns and other nuts are beginning to fall.
Hard mast is also a main crop for the larger mammals, like bear and deer, as well as a cadre of smaller Park residents.
10,000 hogs removed
The program to keep the hog population under control is apparently succeeding.
Depending on the number of personnel the Park has to devote to the hog population control program, they remove about 250 to 300 wild hogs a year.
This year, so far, 223 wild pigs have been eradicated.
Hogs caught in traps are euthanized and the others are shot by hunters. Their carcasses are left for other Park carnivores.
In the summer when the wild pigs are in the higher elevations they are harder to locate. In the fall when the nuts begin to fall they come down to the lower elevations, where they winter. It is easier to track them in the lower elevations.
Due to the Park program to contain the wild hog population, between 1977 and 2007 almost 10,000 hogs have been removed from the park population.