http://www.startribune.com/loc...1532.html?page=1&c=y

Minnesota wildlife officials are searching the Big Stone Lake area of western Minnesota for something they hoped they'd never find: Feral pigs.

Officials recently discovered that pot-bellied pigs -- a southeast Asian species imported to the United States, often as pets -- have been roaming wild and apparently reproducing for the past few years. The pigs could number 25 to 50, and the first ones either escaped captivity or were illegally released into the wild.

"It's just really, really bad news,'' said Steve Merchant of the Department of Natural Resources. "They can be very destructive to native plants and wildlife habitat, and they carry diseases that can affect wildlife and livestock. We're definitely concerned. We want to get them out of there.''

Wildlife officials from Minnesota and South Dakota recently flew near the lake, which straddles the Minnesota-South Dakota border, searching for the pigs.

"We didn't find them,'' said Curt Vacek, DNR area wildlife manager in Appleton. The last confirmed sighting was in January when a coyote hunter reported seeing "at least two dozen'' pigs, Vacek said. He has seen the carcass of a pig killed by a deer hunter last fall and one killed by a vehicle. And he knows of four more killed in 2007.

"There was at least one young pig hit on the road, so there are indications they are breeding in the wild,'' Merchant said. "They can be prolific.''

Though officials said they only recently learned of the presence of the pigs, locals apparently have been seeing them for several years.

"The story I'm getting is these feral pigs have been reported in gardens, and a few were definitely shot last year during the deer hunting season, but I guess people didn't understand that it was a significant concern to us,'' Merchant said.

Pot-bellied pigs can grow to 300 pounds. Vacek said the carcass of one pig he examined probably weighed 90 to 100 pounds. It was a boar with 4-inch tusks....continued

Very interesting. The pot-bellied pigs would probably lose some of their characteristics in the wild, even if never interbreeding with normal feral hogs.
What do you think? Could still be an interesting subspecies and I wonder how adapted they would be compared to their cousins.

quote:

Originally posted by Karoo:
Very interesting. The pot-bellied pigs would probably lose some of their characteristics in the wild, even if never interbreeding with normal feral hogs.
What do you think? Could still be an interesting subspecies and I wonder how adapted they would be compared to their cousins.

There are no populations of wild or feral pigs here to interbreed with.Not YET anyway.I dont know what they normally look like,but here is a pic from the story

How far away from Uncle Ted's place is this? He has feral hogs in a huntable population. At Sunrize Safari? Packy

I would love a chance to bring some hog dogs up from Texas to hunt out those hogs. It would be a hell of a thing running hogs that had never seen a dog before. I bet you could get the majority of them out of an area before they got smart to the dogs. We have some pot bellied pigs around some of the lakes in south texas..particularly Choke Canyon. They will cross with a feral pig but the result looks so much like a normal feral that you really can't tell much of a difference.