Talk to any wildlife biologist in the southern United States about wild pigs, and you’re likely to hear something akin to at least one of the following, “They’re the four-legged equivalent of fire ants;” “If the average litter is six, typically eight survive;” “Only a fence that will hold water will hold feral hogs.”

James Belcher developed symptoms that turned out to have nothing to do with swine flu but everything to do with hogs.  Doctors earlier this year diagnosed the 76-year-old Tomball resident with brucellosis.

Wild swine living high on the hog at the expense of north Milam County farmers may have met their match.   It is round-up time in Burlington, and for feral hog trapper Robert Bohuslavicky, it’s either pig or pork.

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.

A Feral Hog Workshop will be held on Thurs., Sept. 25, 2008 at the 4-H Building, 12132 Leslie Road, in Helotes. Attendees who complete the workshop will receive five hours of continuing education units (CEUs) which include three hours general, one hour laws and regulations and one hour of integrated pest management.

The TAHC, the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency, is concerned about wild (feral) hogs because of the disease threats they pose to domestic cattle and swine herds. Tests on feral, or wild, hogs indicate that about 20 percent of these animals carry pseudorabies, a flu-like pig disease NOT related to rabies, and about 10 percent have swine Brucellosis, the swine form of Brucellosis or “Bangs” disease.

While the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and its partners are working to control wild pig numbers, the Texas Animal Health Commission is considering a regulation that would tighten restrictions on the animals, but would also allow landowners an ability to release them.

Described as being as prolific as cockroaches, destructive as rats, and as surly as badgers, wild (feral) hogs are the bane of ranchers and farmers, but they're a boon for hunters.