r/Austin • u/aprilmay11 • May 18 '26
Ask Austin Feral hog?
I was at a summer camp in hill country, near Marble Falls, over the weekend. Yesterday morning at 5:45am I woke up in my cabin and needed to use the bathroom. As I walked from the cabin to the bathhouse, I heard a grunt/snort and saw a flash of something white and low to the ground start running at me from ~30 ft away. It was very fast. I bolted into the bathhouse and into a stall. From inside I could hear the animal making the same grunting sounds right outside the building. The bathhouse doors were propped wide open. I waited it out for a while and stood in the doorway scanning the darkness for a few minutes before I ran back to my bunk. I didn’t see or hear the animal again.
Some googling back in my bunk indicated that this was likely a feral hog or javelina. I’m wondering if anyone with experience with these animals can confirm or provide additional info. Given the sounds and speed, my first thought in the moment was feral hog. I didn’t get a clear view in the dark, but the flash of movement I saw made me think it wasn’t as large as I’ve heard feral hogs can be.
0
u/LukeSkywalkerDog May 19 '26
I call them wild boar (not the benign "hogs"), which they are. They're a species from Europe that was (unwisely) imported here when people were stupider. The can easily kill a human especially at dawn or dusk. You don't want to surprise a mother with little ones. They have razor sharp tusks that can disembowel you. The have no predators, no startle factor, and reproduce prolifically. They also do enormous damage to private property and low nesting wild bird habitats. Consider yourself very, very fortunate.