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CNN Live At Daybreak

Problem Pigs at Pinnacles Park

Aired January 16, 2002 - 06:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Pinnacles National Monument, south of San Jose, where the wild pigs are big and mean and all around menace to society. Forget about "Charlotte's Web," these pigs need to be confined and Guantanamo's busy. So the park came up with its own solution, build what may be the world's biggest pigpen.

Here's Scott Harriet (ph) to tell us about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT HARRIET, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The mile plus barrier built within the confines of the Pinnacles National Monument designed not to keep out a marauding intruder but rather, to confine.

AMY FESNOCK, PARK BIOLOGIST: Well, pigs are very destructive in nature. In order for them to find food, they do a lot of rooting around on the ground.

HARRIET (on camera): Chad, how long would it have taken to do all this rooting right here?

CHAD MOORE, EARTH SCIENTIST: Well, for a family of pigs, let's say 10 pigs, it shouldn't take very long at all. A few minutes, they could probably root through here finding acorns and grubs and maybe some salamanders.

HARRIET: Yes, how long has it -- has it been a problem at the monument?

MOORE: It really became a problem in the 1980s, and that's when we started constructing the pig fence.

FESNOCK: Actually, if you were to try to step a small pig through this area, the body would be able to fit but the legs wouldn't.

HARRIET (voice-over): It's this type of valuable wildlife data gathering that helps explain why the enclosure has cost more than $40,000 a mile.

(on camera): Get the hell out of there. Would that work?

MOORE: They're not afraid of humans really.

FESNOCK: People question...

HARRIET: Can't you train the pigs? Can't you be a little neater, isn't that possible? They're smart, there should be -- what about a federally funded pig-training program where they wouldn't root everything up?

FESNOCK: Unfortunately, pigs are pigs. We have to get rid of them all.

HARRIET: Yes.

FESNOCK: They just cause way too much damage to continue to allow them to continue to exist.

HARRIET: And they're not -- they're not cute like potbelly pigs, right? They're -- you can't -- it's hard to train a feral pig as a pet?

MOORE: Yes.

HARRIET: Have the pigs ever tried to tunnel out?

MOORE: We don't really have problems with the pigs tunneling under the fence.

HARRIET: Right.

(voice-over): Apparently other deterrents haven't even been tried.

(on camera): And wouldn't that maybe keep them out?

Why do you pig hunt?

JOSH BRONES, PIG HUNTING ENTHUSIAST: Well people have asked me the obvious question, why pigs, and it's not very easy to explain. It takes a little bit of bravado, a little bit of insanity to want to spend your free time chasing wild, ugly pigs with dogs across the hillsides. They're extremely intelligent, and they are -- can be extremely lethal. There have been people actually killed by wild pigs in Hawaii.

HARRIET (voice-over): I felt I learned a lot from Josh. How to employ stealth tactics while in the bush...

(on camera): Good pigging right here?

(voice-over): ... along with gaining a little more reverence for non-domesticated swine.

BRONES: If I've learned anything from hunting pigs, it's to swallow my pride. Just when you think you know all there is to know about them, they go and make you humble.

FESNOCK: We are looking at using pigs that are removed from inside the fence as food for condors. HARRIET: Condor food or not, it appears that the fate of the wild pigs at the Pinnacles Park is sealed.

Scott Harriet for CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: See what you learn on CNN each and every morning.

Scott Harriet, by the way, is a regular contributor to CNN "NEWSNIGHT." And you can watch "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN" at 10:00 p.m. weeknights right here on CNN.

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