Wild pigs are rarely seen in the Bay Area, but it’s clear they’re here from the evidence they leave behind: hoof prints; grainy, black-and-white camera-trap sightings; and damaged natural and cultivated landscapes alike.
With summer on the horizon, that damage is only going to get worse. As the land dries out and hardens, wild pigs will find their way to greener pastures: lawns, fields, vineyards, golf courses. Last summer, wild pigs made headlines in Sonoma County when they ransacked the grounds of a small school in Geyserville.
“They’re trying to snuffle up the loose ground because it’s irrigated, and they’re looking for roots and tubers and insects,” explains Stacy Martinelli, a Santa Rosa-based environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Irrigated soil is soft, and they can turn that over, and find more of an abundance of roots and bulbs and things like that.”…