Where the neighbors are pigs

In the marshy forests outside the walls of Tampa Palms, hundreds of feral hogs run loose, prey for local hunters.

By MELANIE AVE

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 19, 2000

[Times photo: Mike Pease] James Apthorp Jr. clutches a wild pig, which was later released unharmed.

TAMPA PALMS -- It's starting to get dark in the woods.

Suddenly, three salivating dogs take off after the pungent smell of wild swine. They disappear from view behind the trees and brush.

"He's chasing one!" hunter Robbie Faedo yells, pulling a rope from his pocket and wrapping it around his waist. He's preparing for a proper hog tying. "See that."

He points and runs.

The three hunters, knives on their belts and adrenaline pumping, race toward the sounds of barking and snorting up ahead. They dodge branches and jump over rotted limbs.

"She's got one!" James Apthorp Jr. screams, referring to Poacher, the female dog, the best pig-sniffing canine of the troop.

The sounds of the struggle cease. And then, a black boar breaks from the brush, straight for the hunters. They stop and stare, stunned.

Just a few hundred yards behind the taffy-colored homes, shaded driveways and manicured lawns of Tampa Palms, the trio of 20-somethings and their sniffing dogs are on one of their frequent hunts for wild pigs.

Hundreds of feral hogs run loose in the marshy acreage behind one of Tampa's fastest-growing developments, where new homes sell for an average of $240,000.

"It's like you're in the middle of the woods," Apthorp says, looking around at the canopy of oak, palm and cypress trees. "But you're not."

Here in exurbia, the country meets city and the hunter battles the bureaucrat -- and the homeowner.

Hunters have angered residents by traipsing through their yards in pursuit of pigs, sometimes armed with bow and arrow. Last year, homeowner outrage prompted a city effort to ban bow hunting, but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said, unh-unh. Hunting falls within its jurisdiction and as far as pig hunting goes, hunters can do it year-round on private property if they please.

But this fall the wildlife commission is expected to decide on the city's request to make the area a restricted hunting zone.

Wild pigs are considered a nuisance species, and wildlife officials estimate more than a million of them roam Florida.

Tampa Palms developers and homeowners are trying a second approach to keeping hunters away, through deed restrictions.

But for now, the pursuit of pig continues.

The hunting grounds where the pigs rove are owned by Ecopalms Inc. Apthorp's father, prominent developer Jim Apthorp, is a partner in the company. To get there, the hunters drive down the manicured Tampa Palms Boulevard, past the entrances to the well-kept subdivisions.

"I'm doing these people a big favor," James Apthorp Jr. says during a recent outing with pals Faedo and Jon Hathaway, a landscaper. "All these people are totally uneducated about this.

"They have no idea there are 500-pound hogs running behind their houses. They're not only a danger to people, they'll destroy their yards."

The men pass through gated Tampa Electric Co. property, park their black Ford F-150 and uncage their three panting curs: Junior, Poacher and Buster.

The hound and bulldog mixes have been trained to follow the scent of pigs, ambush them and pin them by the ears until their owners take over the capture by flipping the pigs by their hind legs and tying them with rope.

The hunters stalk through the woods slowly, quietly, while their dogs circle through the trees and shrubs. Man's best friend does the legwork for the hunters by keeping their noses to the ground for the musky, urine-like odor of the boars and sows.

Apthorp, 27, has been hunting for pigs, deer and turkey in the woods of New Tampa since he was a boy. He has the wild stories, the pictures and even a healed broken leg to prove it.

Since Apthorp was hit by a drunken driver and his back and neck were injured five years ago, he hunts nearly every day. He calls it his job, though he works as a bouncer on the weekends at the Pleasuredome night club in Ybor City. He even moved to the nearby Cypress Run apartments so he could walk to the hunting grounds any time he gets the urge.

The men hunt for sport and slaughter.

"I like the woods," says Faedo, a self-employed wildlife trapper who has gun metal black hair, two kids and another child on the way. "I love the outdoors. I do everything. I scuba dive. I fish. I hunt."

He wears a gold chain around his neck with the front tooth of a one of his most memorable hunts: a boar that killed two of his friend's dogs. Another time, he and Apthorp wrestled and captured a 350-pound boar.

When the hunters go out with their dogs, they kill the pigs with their knives by slitting their throats. When they bow hunt, they do not bring their dogs, but rather sit in tree stands and shoot when a pig wanders within a 20- to 30-yard radius.

Firearms are forbidden on the property, which is inside Tampa city limits.

Any time the hunters kill a pig, they eat it or give it away so it can be eaten by others. Respectful of their prey, they don't believe in killing just for killing's sake.

Faedo says he doesn't like the taste of pork as much as Apthorp, who eats it every chance he gets.

"I don't have any right now," Apthorp says, "but if I want one, I go shoot one."

While his refrigerator may be currently ham-free, Apthorp is always happy to supply a pig for a celebratory barbecue. Birthdays. Holidays. Just name it.

"All the pork you buy in the store is shot full of steroids and growth hormones and all that stuff," he says with disgust, explaining that pork from wild pigs has less fat. "I can cook a ham from a wild hog and one from Publix and I can tell the difference blindfolded. It's 100 percent different."

Better?

"Oh gosh yes," he says, "a lot better for you."

But better to eat?

"Better tasting. Better for you."

While the wild pigs may be tastier than the grocery store kind, the animals look nothing like their pinkish barnyard cousins.

The feral pigs, which weigh an average of 150 pounds but can reach 400 pounds, have woolly black hair and protruding tusks that turn upward. Standing as much as 36 inches tall and 4 feet long, they live in swampy forests and feed on roots and grain.

They are believed to be the descendants of hogs that early explorers brought over from Spain, which escaped and reverted back to their undomesticated appearance.

A sow can have several litters a year during times of good nutrition.

"If I hadn't been out here for the last 12 to 15 years, this entire place would be overrun with hogs," Apthorp proclaims. "I can catch 15 a night, every night, and not dent the population."

Forty-five minutes into the recent hunt, before the hunters flushed out the pig, the men are getting frustrated. Though it seems dark in the woods, it's three hours before sundown. The hunters worry it might be too early to catch the nocturnal pigs.

The men are getting thirsty. The ongoing drought has turned the once-marshy property dry and the hunters' moods doubtful.

"It's hard to find them because it's so dry right now," says Apthorp, a stocky man whose hair is shorter than the pigs' that he hunts. "They want to be near water. See, they don't sweat. When it's real hot they lay in what's called wallows. They find the mud and dig a little bed in it."

The hunters spy tracks in the dirt where water usually stands 2 to 3 feet deep. They chat, but keep their ears and eyes on the dogs as they wander into the woods.

"Now," Apthorp says, leading his troop like a military captain, "we're going to be completely silent and let the dogs work."

Minutes later, he points to the ground and whispers, "There's a whole bunch of hog tracks right here. They've been walking."

The dogs pick up the scent of swine and run.

"That's a good sign when they take off like that," Apthorp says.

But Faedo is disbelieving. He's been hunting pigs for most of his 29 years and it doesn't feel right.

"Something's getting their attention," Apthorp insists.

Faedo agrees, but says it's "not prime time."

Minutes later, just as Faedo predicted, the dogs return and the men march deeper into the woods, ducking under branches and sidestepping felled trees, just missing two cottonmouth snakes curled up on a broken tree limb, thanks to Hathaway's good eye.

Fed up with the pigless search, the hunters move north to wetter land across a pasture.

It's about 6:30 p.m. The once-bright light that cast brilliant shadows just 30 minutes earlier has turned dim.

But up ahead Cypress Creek holds promise.

"See all the pockets of water?" an encouraged Apthorp says, pointing to a murky basin on his right. It is surrounded by moist, brownie-like dirt. "Now we have a good chance of catching one."

Signs of swine are everywhere.

There are small and large hoof marks in the mud, one right after another, like an army of hogs just passed through. Soil that looks like it has been tilled by a machine, a sign of pigs rooting for plants, worms and nuts. And pools of sumptuous water.

It is here that the dogs speed away and the snorting begins, exciting the hunters.

To the finely tuned ear of the pig hunter, snorting usually means a sizable boar is doing battle with the dogs, and squealing means a pig has been snared.

There is no squealing now, only a pig snorting and dogs barking.

That's when the 50-pound boar races straight toward the stunned hunters. It's 20 feet away, darting to escape the yapping dogs. The hunters stand motionless as it cuts back and forth to a successful getaway.

"Ah, it's a little one," Faedo says. "That's nothing."

The hunters stop in a clearing. The dogs are nowhere in sight. They linger -- and listen.

"There might be more than one right here," a hopeful Apthorp says. "We just don't know."

Seconds later, the hunters catch a glimpse of the racing dogs.

"There they go!" Faedo yells, taking off after them. "They got one!"

High-pitched squeals burst from woods just ahead. The pig cries get louder and louder as the eager hunters draw near. On the ground, three dogs are mauling a smallish pig, which is lying on its back squealing.

Apthorp shoos the dogs away and grabs the pig by its hind legs. Hathaway and Faedo hold back the three excited dogs, who keep lunging toward the pig that the hunters guess weighs about 30 pounds and is less than a year old.

An ethical discussion ensues.

The hunters had not planned to capture or kill pigs today. They just wanted to give their dogs some training. But they look at a 6-inch gash on the pig's torso and wonder if the pig is injured too badly to be set free in the woods. They are prepared to kill the pig and take it home with them because they don't believe in leaving an animal fatally wounded or dead in the woods.

"The bad part about it, when you get a little one like this . . ." Faedo says, trailing off and standing a few feet away from the upside-down, twisting pig in Apthorp's grasp.

"It's going to die," Apthorp says, his khaki T-shirt and hands bloody.

"Let me look at the hole again," Faedo says, weighing the decision. He stares at its bloody gash.

"It'll probably live," Faedo decides.

"I don't know, Robbie," Apthorp questions, giving the wound a once-over.

"Ah, it'll live," Faedo says again.

"You think?" Apthorp asks.

"I think it'll live," Faedo says flatly. "He's not bleeding no more. He'll heal itself."

The decision has been made.

Apthorp lowers the dazed pig to the ground, where it stands a few minutes before high-tailing it out of the woods.

"If it was really hurt badly, it wouldn't run like that," Faedo says, his tone suggesting he's trying to convince himself as well as the others.

It's been about an hour and 15 minutes since the hunters entered the woods. They have walked in a mile-and-a-half circle. They've seen two snakes, one owl and two pigs.

They're tired and hot.

Hiking out of the woods, Apthorp gets a call on his cell phone from his girlfriend.

"We're walking back to the truck now," he tells her. "We had our excitement for the day.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm alive. Do you want to come over and go to a movie?"

The hunters round up the dogs and pile in the truck, leaving the pigs and wilderness behind. They turn right on Tampa Palms Boulevard and head back to civilization just before darkness falls.

Melanie Ave can be reached at (813) 226-3473 or melanie@sptimes.com.

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