"I've been hit by one one time and it was nasty, on the shinbone, took quite a few stitches," Helms said. "It charged me, and I couldn't get out of the way. The way they fight, they sling their heads from side to side. I've lost, Lord, I can't count the dogs."
At Eglin, near Fort Walton Beach, home to the Army Ranger School and Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School, the 465,000-acre spread is only slightly smaller than the state of Rhode Island and the wild hogs are thriving there, roaming and rooting at will and changing the shapes and conditions of creeks and streams.
Because nearly half the base is devoted to test missions, hunting is off-limits in many areas. Using experimental traps, 50 hogs were captured recently, but that is only a small dent in the numbers, said base wildlife biologist Carl Petrick, who is devising a five-year management plan.
"I don't know any benefit they do to the ecosystem," Petrick said. "I've never heard anybody say anything positive about them."
At Robins, Atkins has heard one positive thing about the wild hogs --they make good eating, producing leaner meat than their domesticated cousins. But he would just as soon pass, he said.
