This Little Piggie Goes to Slaughter

Irving traps feral hogs that end up at slaughterhouse

By Bruce Felps
|  Monday, Jan 3, 2011  |  Updated 5:24 PM CDT
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The City of <a title=Irving discovered it had a much larger feral hog problem than anyone knew after trapping nearly 170 wild pigs in the past few months." />

Ken Kalthoff, NBCDFW.com

The City of Irving discovered it had a much larger feral hog problem than anyone knew after trapping nearly 170 wild pigs in the past few months.

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Commentary
by Bruce Felps

Irving officials came up with a moneymaking idea as a derivative of the city’s wild pig problem.

Citizens complained about feral hogs playing fast and loose with people’s yards. The city set up traps, caught about 160 of the animals, turned them over to Frontier Meats in Fort Worth, and collected about $5,000.

"We don't exactly want to get in the business of trapping feral pigs, but for the benefit and safety of our residents, we are certainly becoming efficient at what we do," Jonathon Bazan, Irving’s assistant intergovernmental services director, said in an article published by the Dallas Morning News.

Efficient, indeed. They moved up from traps that snagged just a couple of hogs at a time to a larger contraption that snares 20 or so wild pigs at once.

That’s a pretty good haul when considering that pigs travel in groups — packs? gaggles? clusters? — of about 60, and it probably saves a lot of manicured yards when considering the damage 60 pigs could wreak on one lawn or one neighborhood.

The resident's problems are cured and so are the pigs.


Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. He is suddenly hungry for sausage.

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Posted Jan 3, 2011
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