On July 8th, the Department of Natural Resources will follow through with a designation that wild hogs are an invasive species. There are several thousand feral pigs believed to be running wild in Michigan, according to Mary Detloff, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
“They are a highly destructive animal. We call them the ‘Asian Carp on Land’. They will destroy habitat. They will eat small game birds. They will even eat fawns. They do a lot of agricultural damage and damage of crop fields.”
Wild boars are a big part of Michigan’s game reserve hunting industry. The legislature is expected to pass legislation this fall regulating wild hog hunting in Michigan, so game reserves will be allowed to continue use wild boars in their hunting operations.
Meanwhile, the state will allow the game reserves to conduct two hunts of the hogs, one this fall and one next spring.