Hole lot of mess: Manager of the Tea Tree Plantation at Blackmans Point, John Stokes, shows where the wild pigs have been digging on the property.
The feral pig has made its way to the Hastings and is causing havoc for farmers.
John Stokes runs a tea tree farm in the Blackmans Point area and said there have been times that pigs have overrun his property.
He said he was against outlawing pig hunting with dogs and admitted in many cases it was the most humane and efficient way of culling the animals.
On a trip around his property, Mr Stokes showed Port News how much damage a small mob of pigs can do. He said an entire paddock of his had been ripped up by pigs “a few years back”.
Mr Stokes said he uses traps to catch the animals and then shoots them, but said traps didn’t always work.
“There are times they are so thick, you just can’t trap them,” he said. “That’s when using dogs is the best way.
“A lot of people think it’s cruel, but it’s not. The dog is trained to grab the pig by the ear.
“It’s usually only a couple of minutes at most that happens for, before the pig is killed and dies almost straight away.”
He said the destruction that is often caused on his property is nothing in comparison to “out west”.
“It’s shocking out there, the pigs are really bad. They will go to the centre of a crop and just demolish it. And a lot of the times, for whatever reason, a gun is not suitable.”
One man who hunts the area but didn’t want to be named, said the damage the animal causes needs to be seen to be believed.
“Just a few weeks ago one farmer lost a whole paddock because of pigs,” he said. “He spent three weeks preparing his paddock and two weeks planting, pigs completely destroyed it in three nights, irrigation and all.”
A NSW National Parks and Wildlife representative said pigs of up to 150kg had been caught in the area.
He said dogs were not used to catch pigs within national parks because of a threat to other wildlife.