A Planet Overrun By Hogs?

Looking that way.

PRINCETON Oklahoma just called in the GPS-equipped Judas pigs, which lead hunters to their unsuspecting friends. Texans started gunning down wild hogs from helicopters last year. South Carolina legislators have drafted a bill that allows hunting with night-vision devices.

And last week, wildlife officials in North Carolina endorsed hunting wild pigs after dark without a license. That’s on top of a $5,000-per-pig fine approved last year to prevent hunters from transporting wild hogs and a nuisance designation that made feral swine easier to hunt or trap.

Much of the nation is now losing a brutal, few-holds-barred war with an exploding population of millions of feral hogs, and North Carolina is on the front line, with acres of field crops and delicate wildlife habitat being destroyed daily and the $1.5 billion pork industry at risk. Scientists say all the new laws popping up around the country aren’t likely to stop the expansion of the pig population that’s chomping and rooting up pretty much everything in its path.

You know there's a problem when a government basically declares "open season" on a species. It's us or the pigs, apparently. Good thing that Americans like pork.