Iowa’s only hunting preserve with wild boars would be shut down under a bill passed by the Iowa House, Tuesday. Critics say wild boar present hazards to the state’s pork industry. The bill, however, would allow domestic hogs to be hunted on the preserve. Representative Lance Horbach, of Tama says the Tama County farmer who operates the only wild boar hunting preserve in Iowa would have 90 days to get rid of his wild boar if the bill becomes law. “This allows this Iowa hunting preserve to have hog hunting,” Horbach says. “But it would be domestic swine.”

Some legislators like Representative Mary Wolfe of Clinton questioned the whole concept of hunting hogs.  “We’re going to pass a bill that lets us people hunt these big fat, lazy pigs that apparently don’t provide a whole lot of sport for hunters,” Wolfe said. Representative Dan Muhlbauer, of Manilla, wasn’t sold on the sport of hog hunting either. “We’re going to go out and turn ’em loose in a 360 acre pasture and shoot ’em,” Muhlbauer said. “…Where’s the logic in this?” Wild boar or “feral swine” have attacked domestic swine herds in other states and wild boar hunting was banned in Iowa in 2007. A third-generation Tama County farm has kept up its wild boar hunting preserve since then, through extensions which are about to expire.

The bill to let that farm offer hunters a chance to shoot at hogs raised in the U.S. now goes to the Senate.

(O. Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)