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From the Palo Alto Daily about two years ago:

Wild pigs are tearing up the Peninsula countryside and have land management officials rooting around for a solution to the pesky porkers.
The pigs pose a threat to dwindling natural habitat and might endanger humans.
So far the Peninsula hasn't seen any reports of pig attacks on people, but that could change, according to Kenneth Nitz, a member of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District board which oversees 47,000 acres of protected land from San Jose to San Carlos.
While there have been stories of sows charging bicyclists and hikers to protect their brood in other parts of the state, the pig problem on the Peninsula seems to be limited to damaged ecology, Nitz said. But if the herds continue to swell, it might not be long before the swine show up in backyards, which could be dangerous for small pets, children and even adults, Nitz said.
About 10 months ago rangers and visitors at some of the district's 26 preserves began seeing oodles of the bristly-haired, tusked pigs scampering about, the district's Marketing Director Stephanie Jensen said. The pigs appear to be migrating north from Santa Cruz County, where legend has it they were introduced for sport generations back, Jensen said.
On their way the pigs tear up everything in their path.
Dairy farmers in Santa Cruz County have hired hunters to kill the pigs, which churn up hillsides with their snouts in search of food. The pigs are omnivorous, scouring the land for grubs, roots and acorns.
Packs of the pigs not only uproot native vegetation, they also trample fields and creek beds that support more sensitive species such as endangered California red legged frogs, Jensen said. The feral pigs can breed at age 6 months, and their population can double in a year.
Trap and shoot
To counteract the burgeoning pig problem, the open space district authorized a three year trial trap-and-shoot program. Since September, Dick Seever, who traps pigs for the East Bay Regional Park District and local state parks, has been luring the pigs to box traps with a pungent mix of fermented grains, and then shooting the catch. So far, Seever has disposed of 68 swine- 17 sows, 16 boars and 35 piglets.
The carcasses are sent to a tallow factory at $25 per carcass for disposal. In order to donate the meat for consumption by people or zoo animals, the district would have to get a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector to inspect the live pigs at a cost prohibitive to the district, according to a report prepared by Jodi Isaacs, the district's resource management Specialist.
While some people might flinch at the idea of trapping and killing pigs, others say there's no way around it.
Dr. Aaron Burr, a La Honda veterinarian who specializes in large animals and livestock and served as a consultant to the Open Space District board, said the feral pigs can pose a serious threat to people. Feral pigs can carry a variety of diseases, including tuberculosis - a potentially fatal respiratory disease - and brucellosis, a painful inflammatory disease that attacks the joints Burr said.
Moreover the pigs have no natural predator except mountain lions, and even mountain lions prefer easier prey such as deer, Burr said. Trapping the pigs becomes an economic necessity when they destroy a farmer's crops and damage flora and fauna, Burr said.
But not everyone agrees with the district's pig policy, said Alfredo Kuba, coordinator of the South Bay branch of In Defense of Animals. Kuba said he protested the trap-and-shoot program last year by sending letters to the open space district board and doing television interviews.
"The problem here is humans create problems by bringing in animals and then we create more suffering by disposing of them," Kuba said.
Kuba said his group of 100 activists would support a program to sterilize the pigs and take them to somewhere where they won't harm the land.
Resource specialist Isaacs' report recommended the board look into sterilizing the pigs as a viable option compared with poison, which could harm other animals, public hunting, which is barred on preserve lands, and lethal injections, which cost between $411 and $461 per pig. Isaacs' report also rejected fencing the preserves as costly and unsightly.
Pig contraception
Wednesday the board allocated $35,000 to continue the trapping, but board members encouraged Isaacs to continue researching chemical or surgical contraception for the pigs.
The board also agreed to spend $8,000 to hire a consultant to study the environmental impact of the pigs on protected land. The consultant will swap findings with groups from Sonoma State University and the state Department of Fisb and Game already studying the pigs at Salt Point State Park in Sonoma County to find out what level of pig activity is tolerable in the preserves.
"The district wants to institute a program that will protect the open space preserves and will be most humane, if we continue to undertake the pig control program," the district's Jensen said.

$461 PER PIG = Fool Employment

Bureaucrats sure know a good thing when they see one.