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Homeowners say there’s a hog problem in one Manatee County community

Wild pigs are wreaking havoc in the River Club neighborhood.

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — A Manatee County community says they have a growing hog problem. 

"It’s a little unnerving," said Phil Pape, a resident of the River Club community.

Pape says seeing wildlife in the neighborhood isn’t out of the ordinary, but it's gotten worse.

“We’ve had them come and walk through the area but this October and November was really seriously out of control," Pape said.

He and other neighbors say these wild pigs are leaving behind thousands of dollars worth of damage to their yards.

"My neighbor next door, three-quarters of her property is all torn up," Pape said.

They’ve torn up grass and landscaping.

Credit: Phil Pape

"They were all just eating acorns in my other neighbor's property and then a week later they came back and rooted the grass all up," Pape said. "I’ve seen as many as 30.”

Daryl Bernstein, another homeowner with damages, has started to clean up the mess the hogs left behind. Some homeowners say they don’t want to spend the money on fixes until they know it won’t happen again.

"The hard part is the fact that you could spend $1,000 today and wake up tomorrow morning and it would be all over again," Pape said.

Some people feel the hogs have rights because "they were here first."

"You know I understand people saying they were here first, but unfortunately we’ve moved in," Pape said. "I realize their habitat is being removed but I think there’s probably some humane ways we could kind of thin it down."

As of now, the HOA has allowed trappers onsite and has set up traps but homeowners say it hasn’t made a difference.

"The traps aren't working," Daryl Bernstein said.

"I think it needs to be a bigger approach," Pape said. "River Club can’t do it by themselves, Lakewood Ranch can’t do it by themselves, Braden Woods can’t do it by themselves. It has to be a big community that works on it."

10 Tampa Bay has reached out to Manatee County officials to see if they can help in any way with this hog problem. 

The county spokesperson says he's not aware of any county program or government agency that would help. He says wild hogs fall into Florida Fish and Wildlife's definition of a nuisance species, which can be trapped by local contractors.

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