A New Frontier in Our Work: Keeping People Safer From Ham

Here at R Street, we’re always looking for pragmatic policy solutions that increase people’s freedoms to improve their lives.

That’s why we’re excited to announce a bold new initiative to encourage policies that will keep people safer, on a topic that cross-cuts our interest areas from risk reduction to insurance to contraceptive access to the federal Farm Bill. Obviously, that topic is ham.

Our Safer From Ham work launches today as we revisit a scourge unknown to many urban Americans until it was brought to light on Twitter in 2019:

Feral swine are no laughing matter. Descendants of escaped or released pigs, these animals are an invasive species because of their destructive impacts and spread, primarily across the southern United States. Some of these peripatetic porkers are infected with diseases that can harm people and animals. They damage crops, attack people, and spread mosquito-borne diseases. More than five million of these bothersome boars cause up to $2.5 billion in damage every year. The federal government spends tens of millions of dollars annually trying to contain them.

Think it’s bad now? The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) warns we could experience a “feral swine bomb” if these animals are not appropriately managed. A. Feral. Swine. Bomb.

Policy proposals to address this problem abound, but with mixed results.

In 2011, Texas lawmakers passed what they termed a “pork chopper” bill to allow hunters to shoot feral hogs from helicopters. This method, however Bondian it may sound, has not proven effective. It’s expensive, and the cloven-hoofed critters have learned to recognize the sound of helicopter rotors and run for cover. Perhaps that’s why Lone Star legislators said “hold my boar” and came back for another swing at the swine in 2017, passing a law to allow hog hunting from hot air balloons. This has not proven fruitful either, as many balloonists said they did not plan to offer hunting excursions. There are steering and visibility concerns, and it’s unclear whether the few businesses that offer hot air balloon insurance would cover the activity. Ballooning experts have opined that a hog carcass weighing hundreds of pounds would be inadvisable to bring into a hot air balloon basket for the trip home. Demand for the activity appears low, anyway: “I have never had a phone call from anybody asking to do this,” said a spokesman for the Balloon Federation of America. At any rate, hunting does not appear to be the most effective method to control the porcine peril. For example, Missouri has backed away from hunting as the primary means of control.

So the work continues. Testing of toxic bait is underway, and researchers are working on an oral contraceptive for the procreating pigs. (Will the distribution process include telehealth for trotters?) The USDA has a Feral Swine Eradication and Control Pilot Program, established by the 2018 Farm Bill, and recommends a “diversity of tactics” (Diversity? Paging the Department of Government Efficiency!) including both lethal and nonlethal techniques.

Some success stories provide a rasher of hope: Between 2014 and 2018, both Idaho and New York eliminated these ham hellions entirely, and 10 other states indicated that their feral hog populations were declining.

We’ll continue to keep this issue in our SOW (that’s “scope of work”). In the meantime, if you hear oinking in the yard, stay inside. The boar-barians are at the gate.