Wild hogs are big problem — are bacon, BBQ solutions?

Of the many memories etched in my mind from the double-murder trial and conviction of Alex Murdaugh, wild hogs are, well, the least expected. Hogs were mentioned so often throughoutthe six weeks in court, it sometimes seemed as though they were on trial.

A professed lover of anything with a heartbeat, I do, however, generally support nontrophy hunting and understand that most hunters are avid conservationists. But the constant refrain about hog killing day after day began to drag me down.

After the trial ended and Murdaugh was sentenced to two life sentences, I wasn’t quite ready to abandon the hogs. Surely there’s a way to coexist with this invasive species short of mass shooting, I thought. But even my go-to expert on animal welfare issues, Wayne Pacelle of Animal Wellness Action, told me that the hog problem, unlike most animal issues, lacks moral clarity. “This one is much more nuanced and difficult,” he said, primarily because of the hogs’ “hyper-reproductive capabilities.”

The pig slaughters I found offensive, it turns out, have become essential to management. Ironically, the weapon of choice is an AR-15 type rifle like those of the Murdaugh sons.

Wild hogs have existed since before the ice age, but they’re not native to the United States. European explorers brought them to the New World in the 1500s. Highly adaptable, these porcine marauders have destroyed forests, swamps and agricultural fields. Some people refer to the overpopulation issue as a “pig bomb.” They’re now in at least 35 states and several Canadian provinces.

In South Carolina, as in many other states, it’s open season on hogs — no limit and no license required. In Texas, which unhappily boasts half of America’s estimated 5 million feral hogs, hunters can shoot them from helicopters.

Thus far, the pigs are winning. Farmers, hunters and other large landowners say you can never kill enough of them. Feral hogs procreate young and often, beginning when they’re just 8 to 10 months old. A mature sow typically births four to eight piglets twice a year.

They’re big and hairy with tusks (actually teeth) that can grow as long as 9 inches in males. They use their tusks and snouts to plow through fields, eating crops and digging up roots, tubers and bulbs. They also eat fruit, acorns, bugs, reptiles, amphibians, worms, nesting birds and dead animals, as well as live lambs and calves.

Don’t hate them yet?

Then consider that wild pigs also pollute streams and destroy ecosystems. In South Carolina, they’re wreaking havoc in Congaree National Park, a 26,000-acre treasure that features a flood plain forest and includes one of the highest canopies in the world. Like a pack of wilding drunks, they’re destroying habitats, contaminating water with their wallowing and feces, eroding topsoil and generally making a mess of things. The hogs also carry diseases, such as brucellosis, which they transmit to domestic pigs as well as to humans who come into physical contact with them. Pig attacks on humans are rare, but they don’t like us either.

Why doesn’t some bacon-loving entrepreneur figure out a way to turn wild hog into the newest fastfood delicacy: free-range pork, humanely harvested and converted to inexpensive burgers ’n’ barbecue.

It might be the first time in history that animal welfare advocates, Second Amendment activists and hunters could find common cause.