Wild Pigs on the Big Island Hawaii

Wild Pigs on the Big Island--cute or a menace? Well it depends on who you ask. I will give you some tips on attracting or repelling these wild creatures.

Wild or feral pigs are attracted to a food source. So if your property has--cultivated or wild--trees or plants such as macadamia nuts, pineapple, guavas, avocados...they may pay you a visit. If you have marijuana growing illegally or legally on your land, be warned wild pigs like to get high!

Our neighbor up the street said she had a cute mama pig and her piglets coming through her property. My neighbor down the street shot and killed a wild pig that "trespassed" onto his property.

To hinder feral boars from entering your property, you can put up a fence. This is the best but most expensive way. They do this at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park here on the Big Island.

The next suggestion is to get some dogs. Over the years we have found that the more dogs you have, the wider the berth pigs will travel to avoid your place.

The last thing which I have heard of but not tried is to put a barrier of human hair on the ground around your property. They do not like our smell.

I saw this being done in the movie "The Rookie" with Dennis Quaid, only it was deer that they were trying to keep out of a field with newly planted tender grass shoots -- and of course it worked in the movie!

Please share your wild pig stories by leaving a comment below.

Comments

[Steph]

I vote for cute! A friend of ours who works in pig control in the Park is getting us the next baby he catches, which we'll raise for dog meat.

Aloha and thanks for the reminder to come check you out. :)

[Sarah Hair]

Cute!!

We always loved it when living in Orchidland and the pigs would visit. Our pitbull would go crazy and bark and run out to 'get' them. The pigs would just glance over at her and snort as if laughing at how naive she was being. It was always an adventure.

[Richard]

In the early 80's, when we relocated our banana farm from Kapoho to Shipman at Kea'au there were few wild pig sightings in our banana fields. When we saw pig tracks we would stand around and speculate about size, direction of travel, numbers, etc. As time went on, the numbers sighted went up steadily. And, we would only stop to look at unusually large tracks. This population increase seemed to occur all over the East side of the Big Island--I have no knowledge of the West side. In the last 10 years, pig sightings happen everywhere. Why? I don't know.

[DoubleBrush]

Mahalo everyone for sharing your pig stories so far! Someone told me when there is a drought -- like the one we are in right now -- the pigs travel further down the mountain to look for food. I don't know if that is true but it seems to make sense.