During a hunting trip with his father, 13-year-old Scout Neece killed a 400-pound feral hog on a Texas ranch.
“That’s the way Texans should think about feral hogs,” Scout’s father Steve told the Houston Chronicle. “It’s a non-native, very invasive species. The numbers are staggering about what kind of damage they are causing landowners...and they are spreading toward the urban and metro areas.”
Steve’s primary job is in the insurance industry but on the side, he and two his friends help Texas farmers eradicate the invasive hogs, which do tens of millions of dollars in damage each month.
Steve told the Houston Chronicle that in 15 years hunting, this was one of the largest hogs he’d ever seen.
“I told him (his son) ‘You will probably not see another feral hog that size, it’s one in several thousand,’” Neece said. “The ones that are that size are really smart and hard to find. It was a kind of a proud dad moment for me.”
Steve believes that the hogs are growing to be so large these days because they are getting into cattle feed and ranches and overrunning the cattle.