Field Notes:
Lookout for Pigs!
photo courtesy of Indiana DNR
~ by Jim Eagleman
My friend Steve Backs and I started with the Indiana DNR the same year, 1975. Both newly out of college, we were excited to begin our careers doing something we both felt passionate about: working with natural resources. When I began my time at Brown County State Park as a seasonal employee, Steve was hired as a biology aide working with Indiana’ s deer biologist. Both were summer jobs, we worked at the same property and by the end of summer, we hoped for something permanent.
By late fall, we were both hired and felt fortunate to be employed in our chosen fields. We kept in touch as our jobs changed, visited back and forth as families got larger and saw each other at conferences.
His first job was to document Indiana’ s game bird status, including the management of wild turkey, ruffed grouse, and bobwhite quail. Within 20 years of his work, he saw the demise of quail, primarily a farm-related species, and grouse, a bird that used
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His most recent job assignment is to monitor Indiana’ s wild pig arrival. To date and soon to retire, Steve is still employed with the DNR and works with several USDA biologists on the Indiana pig“ invasion.” Not a matter of‘ if” but“ when” they invade our state used to be a warning he’ d claim to the public. Now with pigs in our county, and found elsewhere in pockets of southern Indiana, the control and eventual eradication of these exotic pigs over the past few years is“ promising,” he says.“ They are now of pest status,” he said.
Most of their initial presence and introduction was due to not so much to natural extension of a pig’ s range, but with human help. Hunters wanting more opportunities are known to release pigs from southern states. Illegally released, and with light hunting pressure at first, pigs were able to persist, withstand harsh winter weather, live in marginal habitats and in scattered woodlots on Indiana farmland.“ They can destroy nearby woodlands by tearing up ground vegetation by rooting for nuts and roots, and destroy nests of young ground birds, young reptiles, amphibians, etc.,” he said. They can also destroy waterways by muddying up streams and rivers. Pot-belly pigs, a smaller pig bought as pets then abandoned, are able to hybridize with wild Eurasian
52 Our Brown County • March / April 2019