Furry hogs still at large in Faribault County after DNR hunted down others

Brenda Baldwin says she worried for the safety of her 100-pound Rottweiler, Dutch, as he stared face-to-face with the boar that had emerged from the woods along the Blue Earth River.

"I mean Dutch is tough, but that hog was probably 200 pounds or so," Baldwin, a landowner south of Blue Earth, Minn., told the Star Tribune about her encounter with a wild pig in late September. "I managed to keep my composure enough to snap some pictures to say, 'Yes, these things do exist.'"

A couple days later, officers with the Department of Natural Resources arrived to her property and shot three adult and one juvenile Mangalitsa hogs. The unusual-looking hogs had escaped a sale barn this summer. But Baldwin thinks six of the animals — five piglets and an adult — are still on the loose.

The breed is furry and woodland raised, often slaughtered for its tasty meat. In the world of heirloom pigs, Mangalitsa are sometimes called the "kobe beef" of pork. In other words, they are not the typically pink, short-haired pig seen in confinement operations and barns in southern Minnesota.

Minnesota has not yet to be intruded upon by the invasive hogs that have spread — sometimes to alarming, destructive levels — in at least 35 states.

So when Baldwin spotted three generations of the furry, dark-haired pig in her grove, including piglets, she had a pretty good idea whose pigs had gone missing: She called her neighbor Scott Haase.

But Haase counted the 100 or so heirloom variety of Mangalitsa pigs he raises down the road. All his were accounted for. Later, he looked at game camera photographs and knew the escapees weren't his.

"One of those pigs had [testicles]," said Haase. "I don't have breeding stock."

News of the furry, ostensibly wild hogs of Faribault County broke earlier this month. Feral hogs — tusked, long-haired — have been known to tear up pastures and endanger rural residents in Texas or Missouri, but not Minnesota.

But, authorities are awaiting their arrival in the north country. In May, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources recounted that in 2016, some pigs wandered off a farm in Marshall County and lived in the woods, surviving and breeding on state wildlife land. The news triggered alarm for pork producers already concerned about contagious diseases, such as African swine fever.

"The big concern is the movement of disease from a feral hog population to a commercial facility," said Jill Resler, executive director of the Minnesota Pork Producers Association. "Pigs are prolific. So if you see one, there's a high probability there's more to manage."

Just how the Mangalitsa pigs — evolved from a wooly Hungarian breed — escaped into the Blue Earth River country near Iowa is not exactly known. State officials will only acknowledge the animals came off a "stockyard" in Faribault County.

On Friday, the Star Tribune spoke briefly with a woman at the only such facility in the county, the Blue Earth Stockyard, who denied association with the feral hogs.

Baldwin and Haase acknowledged the pigs escaped from the local sale barn, though neither know the circumstances. But federal authorities are sure they were not feral pigs that migrated south from North Dakota or Canada.

Gary Nohrenberg, Minnesota director at USDA Wildlife Services, said his staff will return to the area to trap or kill any remaining hogs if another report surfaces. At the moment, he described the hunt like "looking for a needle in a haystack."

"They do become feral pretty quickly," said Nohrenberg. "On the landscape and not in captivity, they do cause a lot of damage to habitat."

Local Mangalitsa-raiser Haase remains curious about the events surrounding these hogs' escape, noting the breed would not likely fetch a high price at auction.

"I'm guessing it's more somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience or [is] a hobbyist," Haase said. People initially placed the blame on him for the escape, he said. "If you're in this business with Mangalitsa pigs, you get to know the other people around the state and region who are raising them."

Haase has been raising the pigs since 2014, processing and selling the meat locally. He's developed a knack with the animals. The one time some hogs escaped when his electric fence went down, he went out to fetch them.

"They just followed him [Haase] like Mary-Had-a-Little-Lamb down the road back to where they belonged," said his neighbor, Baldwin.

Those feral hogs, though, are less compliant.

A DNR official hopes new reports of the animals, which can show aggressivenesstoward humans, will emerge to hasten their capture. Last weekend was the opening of pheasant-hunting season. Soon, farmers will harvest corn.

"If you see them, just call them in," advised Eric Nelson, a wildlife animal damage program supervisor with DNR. "We do not want the public to shoot pigs."

First off, he said, it's the law. Minnesota statute forbids hunting feral hogs. Secondly, explained Nelson, pigs are intelligent. They scatter when shot at. And then they'll become more than just southern Faribault County's problem.