Oregon officials makin' bacon

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Washington state is monitoring the wild pig populations in Oregon, where the fish and wildlife department has ordered farmers to determine the size of the destructive pig populations on their land and get rid of them.

The Oregon fish and wildlife department knows feral pigs are a problem. As an invasive species, they threaten crops and cause headaches for farmers.

The state doesn’t yet know how big of a problem. That’s because most feral pigs in the state live in the low-precipitation private land. But they’re inching closer to the high-value crop land, and neighboring states in the Pacific Northwest are worried.

Feral pigs, like most problems in Oregon, get blamed on California. The pigs are game mammals in the state, meaning hunters have to get tags to shoot them. In the meantime, they root up cropland, destroy hillsides and generally wreak havoc on the environment.

A bill passed last year in Oregon requires landowners to trap or shoot any feral swine known to roam their land, or at a minimum allow someone else to shoot or trap it.