Wild hogs

It was a touch before dusk as I headed down Highway 18 a few days ago.

In the slalom between Chandler and the Deep Fork River, I saw a large black animal in the right of way on the east side of the road.

It had its head down, as if eating, but looked up when it heard my minivan.

Dang. It was a wild hog, and a pretty big one.

As I braked and fumbled for my camera behind the seat, I saw more hogs still in the thicket beside the road. I would guess six, maybe eight.

My first thought was that the fellow in the right of way weighed probably 280 pounds. But if you knock off 10 percent because I was surprised to see him and therefore inflated the estimate, you still have a wild hog the size of a show pig.

I couldn’t stop in time to get photos, so I turned around at the next opportunity and came back, camera at the ready.

They’d already dispersed by the time I got back and I couldn’t see them anywhere, even in the distance.

They were just south of the area where the state did drainage work a couple of months ago.

They have rooted up the right of way several places in search of food, so this herd was probably coming out of cover for an early supper.

This was my first time to see a wild hog on the hoof, and I must say it was an eye-opener.

The fellow in the right of way was big and powerful-looking, with a hog’s typical low center of gravity. He’d be a bowling ball with tusks, if he started chasing you.

Such a herd of wild hogs would be a frightening sight, if you were out for a walk in the woods or bank-fishing at a pond or lake. You’d want a scalable tree nearby.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife, there are somewhere between 600 and 1.5 million wild hogs in Oklahoma. The Noble Institute pegs the number closer to 500,000 spread over 74 counties, but even that lower number is a lot of hogs.

I’m just hoping I don’t meet one in the woods.