The evidence:
- According to the Texas Department of Agriculture, feral hogs "wreak havoc on property, livestock, crops, and pastures across the state," to the tune of $500 million per year. Thanks to a lack of natural predators, their numbers — and the havoc they wreak — are likely to grow.
- Feral hogs have been known to dine on endangered and threatened species such as sea turtles and red-cheeked salamanders, which isn't an issue locally but serves to highlight that these creatures have no consciences.
- Feral hogs once inspired Dallas City Hall to pay gun-toting yahoo Osvaldo Rojas good taxpayer money to eradicate the city's hog problem, which didn't work.
- Feral hogs are documented cannibals.
- Feral hogs are filthy reservoirs of pestilence.
According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, hunters at Cooper Wildlife Management Area, a 15,000-acre spread a bit north of Sulphur Springs, were tracking hogs when they "stumbled upon a sophisticated marijuana growing encampment having more than 6,500 mature plants with a street value estimated at more than $6 million."
The outpost was equipped with tents, farming tools, fertilizer, a generator and irrigation pumps. The crop, TPWD presumes, would have been harvested and taken to market before the start of archery season on October 1. Instead, officials excavated a pit and burned all 6,500 marijuana plants, leaving North Texas a few thousand pounds of weed poorer.
And what of the hogs? TPWD didn't specify their fate. Presumably they cut a deal and, in exchange for not being turned into sausage, are now working as confidential informants, because that's how feral hogs roll.
