New Yorker Porker

Back in December, The New Yorker published a interesting story about feral hogs (Sus scrofa) in the U.S. While there have been plenty of feature stories about feral hogs, this is probably the first one that I can remember that tried to draw a correlation between the hog invasion and political leanings. The author of the article, Ian Frazier, points out that states that have recorded the presence of feral hogs are more likely to be red states, i.e. have voted for Bush in the 2004 election. Twenty-three of the twenty-eight states with feral hogs voted for Bush - including most of the south. Lucky for us Mr. Frazier doesn't really speculate about why, and once you get past the bizarre parts of his article, it's actually quite an interesting piece about hunting for feral hogs and the ferocity of the creatures when confronted.

Unless you can find a copy of the issue (#39 in v. 81) to buy, your only connection to the article, if neither you nor your university has a subscription, is a secondary source like this one at CorrenteWire. You can also catch a glimpse of the feral hog artwork done by Walton Ford and featured in the article. The ISW deeply regrets having missed this one when it first came out, and thanks biosparite for sending a nice email.