Too many flashy nature documentaries with slow-mo predation scenes and all those overheated online forums devoted to predator-on-predator matchups can obscure a cold hard truth: Being a carnivore ain’t easy. Intense footage lately out of the Great Smoky Mountains in the southeastern U.S. underscores that fact, plus another one: Pigs sure are gritty.
We’re talking about a 10-plus-minute video captured in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on March 23 and posted by Old Skull Outdoors which shows an American black bear doing its darndest to kill a feral hog. The violent sequence – and, heads up, more sensitive viewers may want to skip this one – took place in a roadside ditch:
It was captured by a group of people headed back to Gatlinburg after touring the popular Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the U.S. and literally right on Gatlinburg’s doorstep. In a Yahoo! News article on the incident, Philip Talbot, who was part of the filming party, said they initially thought the two animals might be a mother black bear and her cub before they realised what was actually going on.
In the video, the bear repeatedly tears at the back of the hog’s neck (and the hog repeatedly squeals in response – good luck getting that sound out of your brain anytime soon) and tries several times to drag its victim up the steep wooded slope above the ditch. Eventually, the exhausted-looking bear – which seems increasingly aware of the burgeoning traffic jam of onlookers – heads uphill without its prize.
The badly wounded hog remains in the ditch, and whatever eventually happened is unclear. (We hope for both animals’ sakes the bear was able to return and finish off the pig.)
The Park Service attempts to control feral hogs in Great Smoky Mountains National Park by trapping and hunting, but it’s a tall order (as just about everywhere pigs are on the loose) given the smarts, resourcefulness, and fertility of the animals. And in the Southern Appalachians, a number of the native large carnivores that may have preyed on hogs, such as the puma (or cougar) and the red wolf, have been extirpated.
(Rumours of “eastern cougars” still abound in the range, and increasing dispersal of pumas from the western U.S. into former eastern haunts may provide at least some hope that razorbacks will land on more wild menus in the future. Meanwhile, an attempt was made to reintroduce red wolves to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1990s, but it fizzled out. Before they were originally killed off, red wolves were apparently documented preying on hogs in the early years of the park.)