Pig-hunting Makes Sports Illustrated — What about Southern Colorado?

Feral pig (USA Today).

UPDATE, 21 Feb. 2020: Colorado Parks and Wildlife claims to have eradicated all the wild pigs. But did anyone tell their Texas relatives?


At Sports Illustrated, a Texas-centered account of North America's growing wild/feral pig problem and the hunting of same from helicopters by paying customers.

Wild pigs, by all accounts, make entertaining quarry for these sportsmen. They’re smart, elusive and faster than you think—up to 30 mph at a sprint. And that very appeal is, essentially, the root of the whole problem. America’s love of pigs as sport-hunting fodder has sowed a situation it can’t shoot its way out of. And might not want to.

“If they were not fun to hunt, we would not be in the shape we’re in,” says Higginbotham, a beard’s worth of mustache framing his mouth on three sides. “And I term it to be: We’re in a war.”

Up in Saskatchewan, where there are few good flying days, corral-style traps and "Judas pigs" are touted as an answer on agricultural lands. (I think I will start saying that whenever I am annoyed: "Well, Judas pig!")

I do not know if southern Colorado lacks a major pig problem, or if I have just not talked to the right people. So far, I have seen only one alive, in a little riparian area feeling into Pueblo Reservoir. Southeastern Colorado seems to be the place, but this outfitter is on the Western Slope.

Another time, my dog Shelby (the Bandit Queen, we called her) disappeared, and I found her about a mile away along a little gravel road, chewing lumps of fat off a discarded black pig's hide. So somebody got one somewhere. Shelby paid the price that night, vomiting copiously.