By Tom Gilchrist
For The Advertiser
TUSCOLA TWP. — Mark Stanulis believes he and his wife, Lori, spotted a wild hog behind their home in Tuscola Township on Nov. 3. Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials say there’s no evidence such hogs are in the township, but won’t rule it out.
“We’ve had ‘em killed in places where they haven’t been reported before,” said Lt. Ron Utt, DNR district law supervisor for a 10-county area including Tuscola County.
Feral swine have been killed in Sanilac and Arenac counties after no one reported their presence, said Utt, based in Bay County’s Bangor Township.
“There have been various places where you just think they wouldn’t show up, but all of a sudden there’s a group of them there,” Utt said.
Mark and Lori Stanulis live southwest of Vassar along Riverview Drive, off Pinkerton Road, near the Cass River. Stanulis said he and his wife spotted a stout, blackish animal in the morning sun, about 300 yards from their home.
“My wife was standing in the kitchen here making breakfast and she said ‘What the heck is that?’ We got the binoculars and we were able to watch it for a few minutes and then it disappeared,” Stanulis said.
Utt said feral hogs are black in color. A full-grown wild hog weighs from 250 to 400 pounds, he said.
“We’ve had a lot of ‘em in Saginaw County,” Utt said. “They had a game ranch that lost a bunch of them in western Saginaw County, over on the Saginaw County/Gratiot County line, a couple years ago. I suppose (hogs) could walk from there to Tuscola County but they would have had to swim the Saginaw River.”
Utt noted that it’s possible the feral swine could have crossed the river’s ice during winter.
But Tuscola Township resident Michael Cooper, who owns about 120 acres including a woods near where Mark Stanulis said he spotted the wild hog, said he spoke with Stanulis.
“I told him ‘Everybody’s had their deer cameras back here; if there was something like that around, we’d have caught it (on camera),’” Cooper said. “If you look across from (the Stanulises’) back yard, you’ll see we’ve got a great big hunting shack back there. My sister sits in it. It’s 12 feet off the ground overlooking the fields back there. If anybody would have seen something, she’d have seen it from that.”
Cooper said he and his relatives haven’t found any hog tracks in the area. He said he told Stanulis that neighbors have some cats that “are pretty good size and that’s probably what you saw.”
Stanulis said he’s sure he was looking at a pig through his binoculars. The animal didn’t have a long tail, he said.
“The corn was still up and (the animal) came out into the wheat field,” Stanulis said. “It was winter wheat about two or three inches high. We had very good vision. We could see it really well on a good clear morning. It had its nose in the ground doing a little plowing. That’s another thing. There ain’t no cat going to be doing that.”
Cooper said he has looked around his pond, and near a water-filled ditch, since Stanulis’ report, but that he hasn’t found hog tracks. He said he found some turkey tracks near the ditch.
“Pigs will destroy your stuff,” Cooper said. “Every farmer around here would be hot on ‘em if they were here.”
Utt said many wild hogs avoid humans, but he said such an animal is dangerous nonetheless.
“I wouldn’t go up to it and try to put a rope around its neck and lead it home,” Utt said.