HE HUNTS KILLERS
About the Hogs
Editor’s
Note: Gene Brooks of Dublin, Georgia, hunts hogs in
three different states and is on call to a large number
of landowners and farmers. When a bad hog or a pack
of hogs starts eating and destroying crops, tearing
up roads and killing dogs, then landowners and farmers
call Brooks. Brooks' motto is, "Have Dogs, Will
Travel." Although Brooks catches and removes any
hog or group of hogs that terrorizes the landscape,
he specializes in "killer" hogs. Killer hogs
have been hunted before by other hog hunters and are
so bad that they leave bulldogs, curs and hounds lying
on the ground like casualties from a bombing raid. For
the next two weeks,
we'll look at the man, his dogs and the hogs he hunts.
Our concept of hogs is that they are slow, slothful
and not very smart, which may be a fair assumption for
domestic swine. But wild hogs are definitely different.
They survive because of their endurance and their abilities
to fight and kill predators and dodge trouble. Some
of the hogs in Georgia, as in many other states, may
be direct descendents
of hogs brought to this county by the early European
explorers to feed their troops. Remember that when the
early Europeans brought hogs to America, the hogs weren't
put behind fences. The phrase "root hog or die"
meant that the swine either would learn to live off
the land, or they would die. Many of the domestic hogs
brought in by these Europeans became feral hogs, roaming
free, especially in southern swamps and lands, and the
smartest,
strongest and fastest hogs survived. If you'll notice,
in an old population of feral hogs, most of the hogs
are brown, brindle-colored, black or gray for a very
good reason. When a litter of pigs is born, bobcats,
foxes, hawks and owls, the natural predators of pigs,
can spot the lighter-colored piglets and then kill and
eat them. Only the darkest-color phases of hogs can
hide and survive, so many of the older and bigger feral
hogs are these color phases.
TOMORROW: THE WAR AT LONG CREEK, PART ONE
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