Hogs on Southwest Desert?

scandalousbob

Active Member
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303
These are trail camera pictures from Southwest Desert, taken at 6am on June 4 of this year. Anyone else who's familiar with that area ever seen one of these out there? Or have any idea where it could've come from?
Hog_01.jpg
Hog_02.jpg
Hog_03.jpg
 
They have been hunting them in Mesquite and the Arizona strip for years. The story goes that a fellow was razing them and when we had the floods years ago they escaped. Jared Higgins hunts them with dogs. I guess they have made it up to the southwest dessert. Are you talking a little closer to Saint George ?
 
Hogs and other animals pop up in strange places in Utah. I killed a feral hog in 2008 while duck hunting on the south end of Utah lake with my shotgun one afternoon. He wasn’t alone either, there was 4 or 5 more with him, he just happened to be the slowest and stuck around a little too long for me to figure out what it was that I crossed paths with. Saw pig tracks clear up until 2017 in that same area. Wouldn’t be surprised if they are still there. Shot a feral sheep in 2015 Muzzleloader deer hunting in the desert. I’ve seen peacocks, fallow deer and even bison in places they had no business being. Unfortunately, no weapon on me appropriate enough to kill them when I saw them.

honestly i wish pigs would take off in Utah. Seems like the only thing the DWR can grow in large numbers, no matter what they do, is invasive species. At least we’d have something taking up the barren landscape throughout the state that nothing lives on currently
 
I found one dead out side of a gate on the west end of 12th street in Ogden back in 2014. Definitely not one you find typically in someone's back yard or barn
 
I killed a sow hog with my bow near Mountain home back in 2000 on an archery elk hunt. It was on the springs right above where that big single wide mobile home is parked. It wasn't a feral looking hog like your photo. It was a white/pink farm pig I'm guessing it was around 200-250 pounds. I was in disbelief for about the first ten minutes of watching it before I decided fresh pork chops sounded good.

I asked around quite a bit after that. I thought maybe it had escaped from the Circle V farm but people who worked there said no way could it have lived long enough if it was one of their pigs. I was told the guy from Minersville who used to own the sinclair there, he built the little cabin on the back side of Mountain home (can't remember his name but I think his boys name is Dustin) had some pigs there years before and some of them had escaped. I don't know if that's true, just what I was told.

I can't remember if I read it or watched it somewhere but I seem to recall hearing that it doesn't take but a couple generations of pigs turned loose to take on that wild/feral hog look. Who knows, maybe that sow I killed wasn't the last one. I'd be curious to know where this one was spotted.

That year was a pretty wild hunt. My camp was only a couple miles away from where the Beaver county deputy and his dog were shot but that night I had camped out in my truck near the baskets.
 
My guess would be that it escaped someones place in Hamlin Valley, Modena or Beryl Junction. I have a hard time believing it wandered up from the AZ Strip. I haven't heard of any sighting on the Pine Valley unit and I would think there would be multiple sightings there before any made it up to the SWD.
 
Hogs and other animals pop up in strange places in Utah. I killed a feral hog in 2008 while duck hunting on the south end of Utah lake with my shotgun one afternoon. He wasn’t alone either, there was 4 or 5 more with him, he just happened to be the slowest and stuck around a little too long for me to figure out what it was that I crossed paths with. Saw pig tracks clear up until 2017 in that same area. Wouldn’t be surprised if they are still there. Shot a feral sheep in 2015 Muzzleloader deer hunting in the desert. I’ve seen peacocks, fallow deer and even bison in places they had no business being. Unfortunately, no weapon on me appropriate enough to kill them when I saw them.

honestly i wish pigs would take off in Utah. Seems like the only thing the DWR can grow in large numbers, no matter what they do, is invasive species. At least we’d have something taking up the barren landscape throughout the state that nothing lives on currently
They destroy streams,ponds,and everything else where they go! Including,kids pets, and anything else that they get to!
 
Up until last year they shipped more than a million ,,,200 to 250 pound hogs a year from the hog farms scattered for miles across the SWD unit.
 
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