North Texan Turns Nuisance To Property Owners Into Free Food For Those Struggling During Coronavirus Pandemic
COMBINE, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - A Seagoville, Texas man has come up with a creative way to feed struggling families for free and at the same time address a serious problem for rural property owners.
The feral hogs started appearing a few months ago outside Bill Kovar's rural home near the border of Combine and Seagoville.
"Just seems like the last six months or so they've just really come up through the woods and tearing up my property and everything," said Kovar.
To Kovar, they became a major problem plowing up his land and threatening his livestock.
But hog trapper Coy Hirth saw them as a solution to another problem.
"I'm thinking we've got an abundance of pork in the wild why not put it to use," said Hirth of Slappy's Hog Trapping.
Hirth started giving away more than 60 pounds of frozen wild boar meat to area families that can't afford food.
He got a wild game processing plant in Dallas to package the meat from the animals he's trapped on Kovar's property and others.
"I thought he was giving the food away. I'm like, 'that's even better.' We're doing it for a reason a real reason rather than just getting rid of the the hogs we're feeding people with it," said Kovar.
Hirth has also enlisted help from a number of other area hog trappers who often just kill the hogs they catch and dispose of the carcasses.
"Me and him linked up and he told me his idea about wanting to feed needy families right now and I thought that's pretty smart, there's not that many people out there that want to help and it kind of touched me and I was like 'let's do it', said Joe Vaden of Wild Hog Trapping.
Texas has 1.5 million feral hogs, more than any state in the country. A study by Texas A&M found that each one causes an average of $200 in damage a year.
The meat from feral hogs has less fat than domesticated pigs and is popular among hunters.
Hirth keeps adding more to his freezer and plans another giveaway this weekend
"It's taking a lot of time but I'm enjoying it," said Hirth. "I feel like I'm actually helping people."
