(Anyone remember Hogzilla? Maybe not the half-ton monster it was originally touted to be, but still plenty big). (In other parts of the Southeast, American alligators – which, we kid you not, sometimes hack up hog hairballs – and Florida panthers, a regional form of puma restricted to South Florida, will hunt razorbacks indeed, a long-term study on panther food habits in Southwest Florida found feral pigs were the most common prey item.)Īdult razorbacks, after all, are formidable: They commonly weigh 90 kilograms (200 lbs.) or more, and sometimes much more. While bobcats, coyotes, and perhaps the odd raptor may take piglets or shoats, black bears are really the only non-human beast in the Great Smokies capable of preying on full-grown hogs at this point. Before they were originally killed off, red wolves were apparently documented preying on hogs in the early years of the park.)

Meanwhile, an attempt was made to reintroduce red wolves to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1990s, but it fizzled out. into former eastern haunts may provide at least some hope that razorbacks will land on more wild menus in the future. (Rumours of “eastern cougars” still abound in the range, and increasing dispersal of pumas from the western U.S. And in the Southern Appalachians, a number of the native large carnivores that may have preyed on hogs, such as the puma (or cougar) and the red wolf, have been extirpated.

The Park Service attempts to control feral hogs in Great Smoky Mountains National Park by trapping and hunting, but it’s a tall order (as just about everywhere pigs are on the loose) given the smarts, resourcefulness, and fertility of the animals. Wild hogs are invasive, ecologically destructive omnivores. As in many parts of the world where non-native pigs roam free, razorbacks are ecologically destructive omnivores that bulldoze groundcover with their rooting and wallowing, decimate bird and reptile nests, and compete with native critters such as bears, white-tailed deer, and wild turkeys for hard mast such as acorns and other forage. – are invasive, exotic hybrids descended from crosses between Eurasian wild boar released in the 19th and early 20th centuries for hunting and food purposes and free-ranging domestic swine, which have been a part of the New World landscape since the 1600s. The feral hogs of the American Southeast – or “razorbacks” as they’re colloquially called in the U.S. The park is famed for its rugged relief, some of the most biodiverse temperate forests on Earth (a goodly portion of which are old-growth), and a very healthy population of black bears: some 1,500 of the ursids, according to the National Park Service.īlack bears are native to the Great Smokies pigs are not. Set along the Tennessee-North Carolina border, the Great Smoky Mountains are one of the most massive ranges of the Southern Appalachians and include a number of the tallest peaks in the U.S.

(We hope for both animals’ sakes the bear was able to return and finish off the pig.) The badly wounded hog remains in the ditch, and whatever eventually happened is unclear. Eventually, the exhausted-looking bear – which seems increasingly aware of the burgeoning traffic jam of onlookers – heads uphill without its prize.

In the video, the bear repeatedly tears at the back of the hog’s neck (and the hog repeatedly squeals in response – good luck getting that sound out of your brain anytime soon) and tries several times to drag its victim up the steep wooded slope above the ditch. In a Yahoo! News article on the incident, Philip Talbot, who was part of the filming party, said they initially thought the two animals might be a mother black bear and her cub before they realised what was actually going on. and literally right on Gatlinburg’s doorstep. It was captured by a group of people headed back to Gatlinburg after touring the popular Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the U.S.

Going wild 2 predator vs. prey