What’s a ‘Feral Swine Bomb’? Don’t Worry, It’s Just Another Distraction From the Risks You Should Be Concerned About

The prose in the Feb. 2 New York Times article was breathless. Feral pigs in the San Francisco Bay Area are tearing up lawns and ripping their way through golf course fairways. One biologist characterized the pig incursions as a ‘feral swine bomb.’ Wow. Sounds heavy.

We saw similar coverage of wild turkeys in New Jersey, as reported a few years back in that same venerable publication.

That author described the bird that Benjamin Franklin would have preferred to the bald eagle as our national symbol as ‘intimidating’ to gentle human suburbanites.

A harmless part of our environment, really. Not even much of a flyer. So turkeys are intimidating. Really? You mean like oxygen is intimidating?

Should we slaughter as many wild turkeys and feral pigs as possible to protect our golf courses and our Audi SUVs? Of course not.