COLUMBIA, S.C. — One woman in Columbia said she looked out her window and saw multiple wild hogs in her yard.
“I was scared! I didn’t know what they were," said Herbilean Dunwoody, from Columbia . "Well, where did it come from? Why are they in my yard?’ I mean, I was just ecstatic.”
Dunwoody said, she could not believe her eyes!
“I went, is this real," Dunwoody said. "I said 'well okay, it’s gotta be real, I'm seeing them. I’m not making them up.' I said 'just in case, let me take some pictures so when I tell somebody what I saw, they can say ‘well she didn’t make it up, she took pictures.'”
Dunwoody said she's been living in her home for over 40 years, and she has never seen hogs in her yard before. She said if it wasn't for her motion sensor lights, she wouldn't have found the hogs in her yard.
She said the animals have been her yard twice in the month of June.
“They came on the 8th of June, and they came back on the 26th of June, " Dunwoody said. "Between hours of 3 and 4 in the morning, so they’re out real early! They don’t come out in the daytime. I don’t seem them, I’ve never seen them in the day time.”
Dunwoody said she saw four (4) hogs on the first night, and the second night, there was six (6). She aIS the hogs eat the berries that fall from her tree in the backyard.
“They seem to be hanging around that tree, eating the berries," Dunwoody said. "I think they love the berries. That’s why they came back the second time to get some more."
Charles Ruth is the Big Game Coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. He said feral hogs have been a growing issue for a while.
"What we’ve seen recently is hogs showing up in places where they historically weren’t," Ruth said. "People need to know wild pigs, or pigs in general are not native to America. They're from Europe."
He said the recent increase in feral hogs is not surprising when SC residents report seeing them. Ruth said Richland County is a prime spot to be a hogs habitat but they can be destructive to the ecosystem.
"Richland County, here in the midlands, is a good example because we have 2 major river systems, those are the Congaree and the Wateree, that converge in lower Richland and forms the Santee," Ruth said. "That’s just outstanding wild big habitat."
Ruth said people are allowed to hunt hogs, as long as they have a hunting license. The animals can also be hunted year-round.
Dunwoody said she expects to see the hogs in her yard again.
“I don't like the idea of looking out my window at three or four o'clock in the morning, if I'm up, looking at that in my yard," Dunwoody said. "Hopefully they won't come back but I think they will be back, I can’t say when, but they love those berries, so I'm thinking they will be back."