{"id":5664,"date":"2012-03-12T17:00:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T21:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=5664"},"modified":"2012-03-12T14:14:12","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T18:14:12","slug":"lions-and-tigers-and-pigs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/03\/12\/lions-and-tigers-and-pigs\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions and Tigers and — Pigs?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Creepy picture of a feral pig taken by NYS DEC in Peru, NY, September 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in January, NCPR’s Brian Mann reported on the feral pig problem<\/a> in the North Country. The story garnered a lot of comments, probably because of its juicy headline–“Feral Hogs Invade Champlain Valley, Adirondacks”–and creepy pictures.<\/p>\n

Today \u00a0the New York Times details the problem, with this equally apocolyptic header: “Wily, Elusive Foragers Invade Upstate New York<\/a>.”\u00a0Feral pigs are not, the NYT reports,<\/p>\n

“the gentle, pink cousins of Wilbur from\u00a0\u201cCharlotte\u2019s Web,\u201d<\/a> E. B. White\u2019s children\u2019s classic.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea of hogs-gone-wild may elicit a chuckle from those of us who aren’t plagued by the unwanted creatures. But their rapid proliferation across the eastern Adirondacks has serious repurcussions for the ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real sense of urgency,\u201d said Ed Reed, a wildlife biologist for the state\u2019s\u00a0Department of Environmental Conservation<\/a>. \u201cOnce the pigs get established, they are very difficult to eradicate completely.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The solution: trapping the pigs, and allowing hunters with small game licenses to shoot, keep, and kill all the feral swine they want. But farmers and wildlife conservationists alike are worried. Feral pigs are a nemesis not to be taken lightly:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey eat everything,\u201d Mr. Reed said. \u201cThey\u2019ll eat the understory in a forest and dig up plants by rooting the ground for insects and roots. They compete with wildlife for food. They\u2019re the most destructive mammal out there.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in January, NCPR’s Brian Mann reported on the feral pig problem in the North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[22,4839,877,884,6582],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5666,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5664\/revisions\/5666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}