The profile of the wild hog stalker often differs from that of the traditional Texas hunter, Moore said. Nearly anyone involved with the sport suggests that those using primitive weapons have a sidearm at the ready, just in case. People usually can't outrun hogs, especially angry ones. For the less adventurous, it's perfectly OK to use any legal means to smite a wild hog, sporting or not. The state doesn't care.
Official numbers place Texas' undomesticated hog population at a million.
He said surveys show hog populations intensifying and spreading, especially in East Texas. It wasn't always so. The Spanish brought the first hogs to the New World. Once a few escaped their pens, it didn't take long for the clever brutes to adapt to their surroundings. Earlier this century, some Texas landowners imported tusked Russian boars for private hunts.