SENECA, Wisconsin -

Man charged in February with illegally stocking wild animals.

Some say southwestern Wisconsin in October is close to paradise: crimson-tinged bluffs, rolling ridge-top fields, peace and quiet. But haunting the hollows is something, big, mean and ugly.

For years, dozens of giant, hairy hogs have run wild through its valleys and bottoms, rooting up trees, devouring crops before they sprout and keeping residents indoors. Now state investigators say they know who brought the beasts here, and they want him to pay.

They say the culprit is former Gays Mills elk farm owner Robert S. Johnson of San Marcos. They think he hauled 31 wild hogs from Central Texas to Wisconsin in 2002 and let them loose near the Kickapoo River in Crawford County.

Johnson was charged in February with illegally stocking wild animals, a civil infraction. A trial to determine whether he's liable began Sept. 5 in Prairie Du Chien and then was delayed. Proceedings are expected to resume Friday.

The state Department of Justice, which is handling the case, wants at least $31,000 in forfeitures — $1,000 for each pig — as well as money to cover environmental damages from Johnson.

Introducing a wild animal that's not indigenous to Wisconsin can cause a huge amount of damage, said Assistant Attorney General Cynthia Hirsch.

Leonard Olson, who farms near Seneca, said the pigs devoured 90 percent of the corn seed over 14 acres he rented last year and were a big reason he didn't rent it again this year. The pigs also got at corn on another 118 acres he farms, costing him about $20,000, he said.

"It ticks you off, but there's nothing you can do about it," Olson said. "If someone purposely introduced them to us, that's pathetic."

Johnson's attorney, Mark A. Peterson of Prairie Du Chien, didn't return messages. According to court documents, Johnson, who lists a San Marcos post office box as his address, planned to testify that he had nothing to do with the pigs.

Feral hogs are descended from escaped domestic pigs Spanish explorers brought to the Americas from Europe.

They're not pretty critters. They weigh 80 to 450 pounds, sport coarse hair that comes in colors from black to red and have tough snouts, with tusks that can grow up to 9 inches long. They'll eat anything, but they especially like to use their noses to root out food from underground. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the hogs cause about $800 million in damage to the nation's farm industry annually.

Wild pigs showed up in Wisconsin around 2000, said Dave Matheys, a state Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist based in Viroqua.

They've been reported in at least a dozen counties, although no one has any idea how many are here or how much damage they've caused. The state cannot confirm sightings, and state agriculture officials offer no reimbursement for crop damage by pigs. But concern over their effects on the environment and the possibility they could spread diseases to livestock are growing — last year USDA officials said pseudorabies in two Clark County swine herds was likely linked to exposure to wild hogs — and the state has declared open season on them.

Crawford County is a pig hot spot. The county is nearly 50 percent forested, crops are plentiful and its steep ridges and ravines provide natural cover. Matheys estimates about 275 pigs have been killed in the county, yet 30 to 50 pigs still roam the area.

Roger Benzing, a 66-year-old farmer who raises corn, hay and alfalfa outside Seneca, calls the pigs "devils." He said they've cost him about $20,000 in crop damage. His wife, Diann Benzing, 63, said she's given up hunting for spring mushrooms because she's so afraid.

"You know they're always out there," she said.

Wild pigs didn't exist in Crawford County before 2002, said Steve Dewald, a Department of Natural Resources warden supervisor in La Crosse. In fact, no one saw any until a car hit some near Bell Center in the county's northern quarter in April of that year, Matheys said.

The state started getting tips that Johnson, who ran an elk farm and hunting preserve just outside Gays Mills until 2005, was tied to the pigs' appearance, Dewald said.

Johnson's acquaintance, Kirby Fulbright, of Medina, told a Wisconsin warden in March 2007 that he and Bryan Stovall trapped about 31 hogs on Fulbright's property about six or seven years ago. Stovall is described in a state's witness list as a professional pig trapper from Kerrville.

Fulbright said he rode to Wisconsin with a horse trailer loaded with the pigs. Johnson told him he wanted to release the pigs near his elk ranch so he could establish a wild pig population for hunters.

He also said he was upset with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Fulbright said, but Fulbright didn't elaborate.

According to Fulbright's statement and other court documents, they stopped near the Kickapoo River a few miles from the ranch about Feb. 9, 2002, and Johnson released the pigs.

Fulbright recanted his statement a week later. He said he was medicated for cancer and drunk when wardens spoke to him. He said they harassed him until he told them what they wanted to hear.

Meanwhile, Stovall gave wardens a statement saying Johnson told him he was going to take the pigs to Wisconsin.

"If this is true, that is terrible," Leonard Olson said. "If he's found guilty, he should be reprimanded real strong."

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