SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A bill making its way through the California Legislature would make it easier for landowners and hunters to kill wild pigs doing damage to agricultural lands.
Yet hunting associations are lining up to fight Senate Bill 856, authored by Bill Dodd, Napa's Democratic state senator.
The bill encapsulates the long-standing contradictions in how California manages the destructive feral pigs that have invaded 56 of California's 58 counties.
Wild hogs — an invasive species not native to California that live almost entirely on private agricultural lands — are despised by vineyard owners and other farmers for the damage the voracious, rooting animals cause to their properties and crops. Wild pigs are estimated to cause at least $2 million in crop damage in California each year.
At the same time, wild pigs are prized by California's big game hunters, who regularly pay outfitters close to $1,000 to kill a single hog.
As it stands now, California's wildlife agency classifies wild hogs in much the same way it does to deer, elk and bears. Hunters are required to have a hunting license, and they must buy a state permit called a "tag" to kill a hog. Similarly, landowners are required to get state permission to kill wild hogs damaging their lands by obtaining what's known as a "depredation permit" issued by the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Killing a hog without a license and tag or a depredation permit is punishable with a misdemeanor charge that comes with the potential for thousands of dollars in fines and jail time.
Dodd's bill would reclassify hogs from a protected game animal to an "exotic" species that isn't as intensely regulated. Landowners, their employees and others to whom they give written permission would be allowed to kill destructive hogs without a permit.
Among other changes to the law under Dodd's bill, landowners could shoot hogs, which are most active after dark, at night using lights. That method is currently illegal for big game hunting.
The bill also would make it cheaper for non-landowners hoping to bag a hog. Right now, it costs $25.10 for a California resident to buy a pig tag to kill a single hog.
Under Dodd's bill, a pig hunter would be able to buy one $15 annual hog "validation" that would allow him or her to kill multiple hogs without buying a tag for each animal. The number of animals killed per validation would be determined by the California Fish and Game Commission.
"We're a step closer to controlling these destructive, non-native animals, which are endangering sensitive habitats, farms and other animals," Dodd said in a written statement earlier this month after the bill cleared its first committee. "Thanks to my colleagues for recognizing wild pigs' threat to our state and for doing something about it. We must increase opportunities to hunt them so that we may bring our pig population under control."
Why hunters oppose feral hog bill
So why are hunters opposed to a bill that would make it cheaper and potentially easier for them to kill pigs?
For one thing, fewer hogs on the landscape would mean fewer hunting opportunities. For another, if landowners are allowed to kill hogs without the hassle of needing licenses and state permits, it could take business away from a group of influential hunting outfitters who make their livings by taking out clients to shoot pigs on private lands under the current highly regulated system.
Dodd's bill also includes a ban on the controversial practice of hunting pigs in fenced preserves. California has a few of these "high-fence" hunting ranches scattered around the state.
High-fenced hunting is despised by animal welfare activists, who call high the practice "canned hunting." High-fence hunting is controversial even among hunters, some of whom question the ethics of paying to shoot animals unable to escape confinement.
California's hunting associations, however, say these preserves offer "fair-chase" hunts that provide an important function.
"These hunts provide an opportunity to many, including our most deserving wounded warriors, those with special needs, the elderly, and youth who are physically unable to handle traditional hunts," a group of 10 hunting and firearms associations wrote in an opposition letter.
Opponents of Dodd's bill warn that a ban on high-fence pig hunting would set a precedent animal-rights activists could exploit in future laws.
Hunters also have concerns about reducing the fees hunters pay to the state. In 2021, pig tags generated $876,058 in revenue for the Department of Fish and Wildlife's big game management account, whose funds are used for habitat restoration projects for a number of different species.
If all of this sounds familiar, it should be. A similar bill introduced in 2018 failed to pass.
When did wild pigs come to California?
California's wild pig infestation is centuries in the making.
In the 1700s, Spanish settlers' farm pigs first escaped into the wild. In the 1920s, a Monterey County landowner released some European boars into the hills. The European pig subspecies have long snouts, sharp, protruding tusks and the "razorback" look that trophy hunters find appealing.
After a century of interbreeding, California's wild hogs now share features from both varieties of pigs.
California has the fourth-largest population of wild pigs in the country behind Texas, Florida and Georgia.
California's hunters report killing fewer than 5,000 wild pigs each year, a fraction of the state's feral hog population, estimated at between 200,000 and 400,000 animals.
