‘A tremendous problem’: Wild hogs wreak havoc in SC. Soon, you might get to hunt them by air

Anna Wilder
·2 min read
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It’s not a bird... it’s not a plane. It’s a helicopter, with the sole mission of hunting feral hogs.

Yes, hog-hunting by helicopter could be in South Carolina’s future, if a newly filed bill passes in the upcoming legislative session.

State Rep. Bill Hixon, R-Edgefield, prefiled a bill that would allow the aerial hunting of feral hogs in South Carolina. It’s already being done in Georgia and Texas, Hixon said, and now he’s pushing for it to be allowed in the Palmetto State.

“Our state is being overrun by feral hogs,” Hixon said. “We haven’t been able to keep up with them because the population keeps growing and growing.”

Wild hogs will get into fields with crops and start destroying them, Hixon said.

The cost of farming has significantly increased in the last few years. According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, since 2020 the total costs paid by U.S. farmers to raise crops and care for livestock has increased by more than $100 billion, or 28%.

The hunting of feral hogs by helicopter in the state would be restricted to areas of 1,000 acres of land or more. Additionally, in order to hunt the animals by helicopter, the Department of Natural Resources would need to issue a permit for safety and to protect property, not for sport. If anyone failed to follow these rules, it could result in a misdemeanor charge.

Feral hogs have become quite the problem in South Carolina as well as across the U.S. Not only are they destructive to farming, but they can also harm native species.

“Feral hogs are a tremendous problem,” said Greg Lucas, a spokesperson for DNR. “Statewide, they’re not native, and they’re terribly destructive. They out-compete some of our native animals for food. They sometimes eat some of our native animals.”

The government and DNR have been taking steps to get rid of the hogs. On Nov. 15, government sharpshooters went into Congaree National Park, a wildlife preserve near Columbia that has had trouble with destructive pigs through the years, to hunt them, and ended up killing 18.

The government took out hogs that have been seen recently near the park’s visitors’ center and the main trails.

“They’re not going away anytime soon, because their reproductive rate is so high,” Lucas said. “They’re hard to hunt. They’re hard to trap. They’re very smart.”