Feral hogs pose threat in Pa.

Feral hogs are 300-pound, 30 mile-per-hour rampaging, crop-eating machines and they are moving north into Pennsylvania.

A recent study by outfitter Captain Experiences using data from the University of Georgia found that about three dozen hogs have been spotted in 14 Pennsylvania counties.

An expert at Penn State told WJAC-TV the hogs have been found in south-central counties west of Harrisburg and several counties in the north-central region, over the past decade. Although one was sighted in Dauphin County.)

“The farmers might see a nice field the evening before, and they come out the next morning, and the hogs have gone through, and literally destroyed a large portion of the crop,” said Melanie Barkley, of Penn State Bedford. They root them up. They may feed on the crop themselves. They may be digging up insects in the soil where the crops are growing.”

The population of wild hogs in southern states, including Texas, Florida and the Carolinas is in the hundreds, even thousands that have caused significant damage to croplands. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has been tracking the spread of the non-native hogs in the U.S. for 40 years says they cause $2.5 billion in agricultural damages each year and can also destroy forest lands and transmit diseases and parasites.

A decade ago an effort to ban wild hog captive hunting preserves in Pennsylvania failed when then Gov. Tom Corbett signed a bill allowing the farms to continue to import hogs. The concern by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, wildlife biologists and farming and animal advocates was that the hogs could escape captivity, cause destruction and spread disease.