JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – When was the last time you saw a family of pigs on the move through the neighborhood? Well, that’s what Jacksonville homeowners Tom Bucher and his daughter Diana saw on Wednesday night.
“Those are boars…those are boars, piglets, one two three four five six piglets,” The Bucher family can be heard saying from the recorded cell video.
It’s a rare sight on Jacksonville’s southside, but the father and daughter caught a family of feral pigs running the streets around 8:45 p.m. in a residential subdivision.
“I turned around, looked a little closer and I was like that’s a pig, that’s a pig,” Diana said.
It’s something Bucher said he never saw for the first time in the 19 years he’s lived at the River Brook of Glen Kernan subdivision.
“I’ve seen plenty of deer, armadillos, rabbits, stuff like that but never anything like boars,” he said.
Bucher believes that construction has run the wild animals out of their homes.
“Right here by J Turner Butler Boulevard and Hodges Boulevard, there’s a big development,” Bucher said. “They cut down all the forest, so they are coming in. I’ve seen less deer because they cut down the forest there.”
Bucher is referring to the construction and development of more than 900 apartments, sitting on nearly 50 acres of land that runs adjacent to J Turner Butler Boulevard. The area used to be a dense forest but was cut down to create multifamily developments.
Animal trapper Ryan Boyd also talked about other reasons why the hogs may be on the move.
“There’s a few different reasons. Rain can cause movement for wild pigs because wild pigs don’t have sweat glands. So, they’re always going to be near or in the water. That’s why they wallow in the mud. It helps cool them off,” Boyd said. “So, a lot of times when it rains a lot, it fills up those creeks and rivers and pushes them up towards higher drier ground, which is where houses are built. So you have those encounters.”
Boyd said hogs breed at an incredibly rapid rate, saying the female hog can have up to three litters a year with 8 to 12 piglets per litter. He said they can do enormous damage to agriculture, to people’s lawns and golf courses, adding he didn’t think they were dangerous until a hog charged one of his employees.
“But it actually charged one of my technicians that was out there when he was getting ready to set the trap up.,” Boyd said. He said the pigs can get aggressive. He’s even been bitten by one.
Boyd said people who encounter wild pigs should keep their distance.
Boyd said if you see boars and piglets in your neighborhood, you should hire a professional to trap them and perhaps relocate them before they do a lot of damage.
Hogs weren’t the holiday visitors the Buchers expected to encounter.
“I would never imagine seeing boars here.”
Copyright 2023 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.
