Feral hogs reproduce religiously and often.

One's affection for hogs depends on what condition they're in when encountered. When long and skinny, as in sausage and bacon, you gotta love 'em. When hairy and rooting out crops, lawns and quail nests -- not so much.

The pig, Sus scrofa, was domesticated in the Tigris River basin some 12,000 years ago, according to archeological studies. It was then carried to Europe where it interbred with native wild boars. Spanish explorer de Soto introduced North America to its first porcines in the 1500s while he searched Florida for the Fountain of Youth. Some of his pigs escaped and appear to have found that Fountain, because they've been breeding and spreading young pigs across the U.S. ever since.

Today some 4 to 8 million feral hogs in the U.S. damage more than $1.5 BILLION in agricultural products annually. They destroy native plants, ground nesting birds, snakes, amphibians and mammals. They eat whitetail fawns from time to time and even kill about a half-dozen humans each year.

With tusks like these, hogs can, and sometimes do, kill humans.

Yeah, feral hogs can be horrible.

In the U.S. alone, untold millions of dollars are spent trapping, fencing, poisoning and shooting feral hogs. This is where you come in.

Hunters, those atavistic throwbacks among us who insist on getting their bacon the hard way -- and paying for the privilege -- can do their small part to reduce feral hog numbers. Hunt them, folks, hunt them.

Self-sacrificing as ever, I recently rushed to the defense of Texas under the guidance of Larry Pancake of Rock Hill Ranch Hunting Co., who directs befuddled hunters to a variety of Texas game from excessively-antlered mule deer to ranched exotics. It's another world down there. And it's overrun with hogs.

"Work along that high ridge." Pancake directed. "They like to hang out in that thicket just off the edge. I've got some other hunters out chasing them with tracking dogs, so some might come by you." They did. The dogs, I mean. Were I a pig, I don't think I'd have been too worried. The hounds loped along desultorily in the afternoon heat, the ground perhaps too dry to pick up scent. They certainly didn't detect me, despite passing at 20 feet. But later they lived up to their billing...

The Republic Forge 1911 handguns in 10mm Auto proved more than sufficient for terminating hogs.

I could hear excited dogs in the near distance, shouts from their handlers, and soon saw why. A big-shouldered black boar is trotting right toward me through a typical Texas tangle of prickly pears. I raised the puny, handrmade-in-Texas Republic Forge 1911 handgun, aligned the front sight over the hog's front shoulder and launched what I hoped was sufficient bullet. It was. Forty yards out, the unsuspecting pig caught the 180-grain, 10mm Bonded Core Hunter bullet in the neck and fell over, dead.

This was no fluke. What I initially thought would be an ineffective tool for terminating hogs proved just the opposite. It twice shot clear through the chest of a wild-looking red boar which dashed about 100 yards and expired. Later, while still-hunting up a slight ridge, I surprised two hogs in their mid-day siesta. As the back one trotted through a gap in the foliage at about 35 yards, that little 40-caliber bullet punched behind its shoulder and through its heart. Three encounters, three dead hogs. Hmmm.

Over the years I've shot a lot of feral hogs from Florida to Australia. I've using a variety of rifles to do it, from a Remington M700 in 221 Fireball to a Weatherby Mark V in 300 Wby. Mag. None have performed any more impressively than that 1911 handgun. Admittedly a handgun limits your range, but where brush is thick anyway...

Turns out a 10mm Auto Republic Forge 1911 is all the gun you need for feral hogs. The Thomas knife takes over once the gun is done.

So here's the point: whether you like the challenge of hunting with a rifle, shotgun, handgun, bow, spear or knife, take that challenge to a feral hog soon. Help farmers, help wildlife, help save wild places from the ravages of those horrible hogs. Get out there and start makin' bacon.

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