Picking up the scent, dogs bolted after one of the meanest and most feared beasts in Alabama.
A cacophony of howling, barking, growling, grunting and snorting from this battle royal reverberated across the forest on this chilly morning. Armed only with knives, we rushed to the ruckus. At the tooth-and-tusk melee, a large “bayed” boar stood backed up against a tree surrounded by barking hounds.
“A big bayed up hog is organized chaos,” says Josh Forbes, a hog hunter from Mobile. “A big boar can be pretty dangerous, but nothing is more dangerous than a big sow with piglets. A big boar is more likely to fight the dogs, but a big sow will try to eat anything that threatens her offspring. I’ve seen a big sow rip a chunk of hair and meat from the back of the dog’s shoulder to the front of its back leg.”
Leaner and much more muscled than any barnyard pig, a big feral boar can weigh more than 300 pounds, but average between 100 and 250 pounds. Alligators grab pigs that wander too close to the water. Coyotes and bobcats sometimes snatch piglets, but few things in nature want to tangle with an adult hog. With razor-sharp tusks, a tough hide, a “shield” of hardened tissue protecting its vitals, and an ornery disposition, an adult boar fears nothing.
Although the boar could not hide from the dogs, it could defend itself in the adrenaline-pumping brawl with potential lethality. The big boar made several slashing thrusts with its sharp tusks trying to kill or maim its tormentors while the dogs snapped at the pig’s vital parts and tried to avoid its tusks.
With the hog bayed, one of our team released a “catch” dog, a scarred up old pit bull who absolutely hated hogs. While the pig focused its attention on the other dogs, the pit bull clamped its powerful jaws around the boar’s sensitive organs to immobilize the forest ogre.
With the big boar rendered powerless by the pit bull determined to tear off its body parts, one hunter tackled the tusker and wrestled it to the ground. More help soon arrived. Several men grabbed the pig by its legs, lifting them to pin its head to the ground. This keeps wild swine from moving and prevents them from slashing people or dogs with their razor tusks.
Then other hunters further restrained the pig by kneeling on its neck while dog owners tried to pull their animals away from the enraged beast. One of the hunters moved in to dispatch the pig with a knife. Those who hunt hogs with hounds don’t want to shoot firearms for fear of killing one of their dogs.
For centuries, sportsmen in Europe and Asia chased Eurasian or Russian wild boars with dogs. Sportsmen on horseback followed trained hounds tracking hogs by their scent. After the hounds located a hog, the group sent in catch dogs to hold the beast until the hunters killed it with a knife, sword or spear. Other than using pickup trucks and all-terrain vehicles instead of horses and GPS collars to track the dogs, not much has changed about hunting pigs with dogs.
Like the hunters centuries ago, Alabama sportsmen release one to three “strike dogs,” usually hounds or curs bred specifically for hog hunting. Periodically throughout the day, hunters alternate their dogs to give tired animals a rest. Strike dogs find and chase pigs until the hogs turn to fight.
When cornered, a big boar typically backs into a hole, thicket or other cover so it can face its adversaries head on while protecting its flanks. That’s when hunters send in the catch dog to grab whatever it can to restrain the angry beast and hold it for the hunters.
Highly adaptive and prolific, hogs thrive in every habitat in Alabama from the mountains to the coastal marshes. They live in every county, even in suburban and urban areas. They eat practically anything and cause extensive damage to crops, animal feeders, fences and wildlife habitat. They tear up the ground with their noses while rooting for something to eat and displace native wildlife like white-tailed deer by competing with them for food.
Since feral swine cause millions of dollars in damage every year, many landowners welcome hunters to come on their properties to kill hogs. Alabama allows sportsmen to kill feral hogs all year long without limit on private lands.
John N. Felsher is a professional freelance writer who lives in Semmes, Ala. He also hosts an outdoors tips show for WAVH FM Talk 106.5 radio station in Mobile, Ala. Contact him at [email protected] or through Facebook.
