As for my argument, it was made in rebuttal to your assumption that feral hogs were always present in East Texas. I'm here to tell you that for the most part, after free range livestock were gone, so were they. Sure, there were some, but they were much fewer and much more far between.
The issue then becomes to what extent did/do feral hogs require the presence of humans? The gist I get is that in our somewhat cherry-picked popular view of history the role of the hog in terms of ecological impact and economy is seriously overlooked.
Truly feral cattle for example, famously prospered in Texas after introduction even in the absence of humans, so did horses.
It could be, as implied here, that now that everyone and his brother ain't shooting every one they see as recounted here being the way it was in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, that hog numbers can explode.
Certainly way back in the late 17th/early 18th century the first arrival of free-ranging hogs were a major pain to the crop-dependent Indians of New England and the source of many complaints. King Philip's bunch eventually adapted to the point they were eating pork for sustenance and using pigskin for leather.
At present, feral hogs in Mexico, feeding on acorns as they do, are regarded as a threat to some populations of the band-tailed pigeon, which also depends largely upon acorns. Current thinking is an abundance of hogs along the advancing frontier may have been one more of the nails in the coffin of the acorn- and mast-dependent passenger pigeon.
Birdwatcher
