CoCo

• Name: CoCo
• Species: Feral Hog
• Age: 3 years old
• Weight: 175 lbs
• Sex: Female
• Special Needs: Starting to show signs of Brucellosis.
• Personality: Alpha female.  One of the most aggressive and strongest willed of the sows.  She is also one of the smartest.  A strict disciplinarian, she holds the line on traditional feral hog rules of conduct and society.  If you break the rules, you will get disciplined, usually by a bite on your ankle or having your tail nipped off, as was done to her as a piglet. A good mother, she does not nurse the piglets long and can not stand having them around when time to wean.  Not aggressive to human researchers, but tolerates them.
• Favorite Food: Dog bone treats, corn
• Family: One of the original piglets from Godfather Pig and Mean Moma. White Foot(brother), Big Red(brother). Most of the surviving pigs were from her litters.
• Likes: Treats. Being #1 Sow.
• Dislikes: All males. Any female not from her litters. Any one else’s piglets. All Dogs. All Humans (except when the bear came and she asked Mr. Keith to chase it away – see story below). Anything that annoys her – which is everything.
• Needs: Brucellosis cure. Pain relief. Fenced land to keep hunters away.

CoCo was a young teenager piglet when we first met her.  Her dark chocolate coat and stubbed tail set her apart from the other pigs.  She was smart and aggressive to the other piglets, often challenging the young boars to play-fights and winning.  However, she was chosen by Security Pig and her mother Big Mama, to be the next Security Pig.  This is a critical position in the herd requiring a smart and fearless female (usually).  The Security Pig stays on the outskirts of the sounder/group and listens and looks for potential threats.  If a threat was detected, the Security Pig would sound the alarm,  and unlike the others in the pack that run away, would head directly to the threat to challenge it and if necessary fight it or lead it away from the pack.  But CoCo did not want the job.  She was disciplined (tail bit off) and chased away to the outskirts by Security Pig and Big Mama.  This made her angry and she bore this grudge as she grew into adulthood.  When she became the #1 Sow, through strength and intelligence, she relegated Big Mama and Security Pig to lesser positions, often chasing them away from the pack during feeding.  She thus secured her position as the ultimate #1 Sow. 

CoCo appears to be immune from Brucellosis, but she passes it on to her offspring.  She always had large litter sizes and was a good mother.  CoCo keeps her own offspring in her sounder and does not allow other pigs to join.  She was the first sow we witnessed teaching her piglets how to respond when danger was near.  In a game we called “ALERT”, CoCo would call her little piglets to her on one side of the yard and then sound the “alert” grunt that sounds like “BERF!”. She would then run away to the other side of the yard.  The piglets were to either freeze in their tracks, or follow Mom if they were close enough.  The piglets that did not do it correctly were disciplined.  She would do this several times, until all of the piglets learned how to respond to an alert.  Of note this was the first time we heard a shrill whistle, that once CoCos sounded it, all of the pigs in the herd would leave the area. Soon we would learn what this whistle was to mean.

Although not aggressive to her human researchers, she did learn to recognize her name as she was scolded for chasing the other sow’s piglets away from feeding areas.  She would snort and grumble, but never showed any aggression like charging or challenging the humans.  She recognized that we were not a threat, and were useful to her and her family.

This was evident the night The Bear showed up.  Once a year, in the winter time when the river is low, a large male black bear would cross the river from the Wildlife Management Area and visit our area looking for a mate and food. Young piglets are a challenge for a bear because of their speed, but still an opportunity for a great meal that is not to be missed.  With The Bear in the area, the pigs were on edge.  CoCo had just given birth to a new litter and was concerned for their well being.  The night before The Bear had come through the facility and destroyed our feeders and chased the pigs.  This was when we heard the “bear whistle” used as a real alert.  Of note, the pigs use the “BERF” alert for dogs and humans but nor for bears.  Our assessment is that the whistle does not alert the bear to their location as it is only sounded by one pig.  The BERF alert is echoed by all of the pigs in the pack.

In a remake of the Holly Hunter scene from “ Raising Arizona, ” the pigs had seen the bear run off when Ms Jane yelled at it for chasing the piglets,  “Leave my pigs alone you Warthog from Hell!!” Feral Hogs do not miss anything, and they have great memories and reasoning ability.  With a bear in the area the pig herd came to our facility earlier in the day, knowing the bear would not come near our facility while we were there.  As night fell, CoCo and the pigs could smell The Bear in the area.  They were visibly upset.  CoCo began crying like a piglet and grunting my “name” as she paced back and forth under our elevated porch area.  When I came out she started grunting and squealing and running towards the front of the building then running back to her piglets.  We realized she was concerned about The Bear.  So I went outside with a flashlight and started walking through the yard to the swamp area across the road where CoCo was looking.  When I turned around, there was CoCo and her piglets following right behind.  CoCo would not come within 10 yards of us, but here she was almost in my footsteps.  I searched the woods, making noise so The Bear would leave. Although I could smell that it had been there, I did not hear it or see it.  So I returned home.  CoCo stayed right behind me, grumbling and snorting because she knew that The Bear was still there somewhere as she could smell it. She was frustrated that the HUMAN did not kill The Bear like she wanted.  I stayed outside with the pigs on Bear Guard Duty while CoCo snorted and grumbled at me and the bear. CoCo finally led the entire pack across the road in the early morning hours.  After that event, CoCo would come closer to us and give us more respect, although she really wanted me to remove The Bear completely.  This demonstrates how smart these pigs are and especially how smart CoCo is.  She knew The Bear was afraid of humans, and although she really did not like us much, she felt we could help her save her piglets.

Another interesting event occurred a few months later.  Her previous litter was now reaching 6 moths old, which we call the teenager years.  The females (gilts) are becoming breeding age, and the young boars are learning to fight to stave off hormones as they reach sexual maturity.  This litter was all males.  They became their own gang and would travel around alone, playing and learning how to fight.  One night we heard a shot from a trespassing hunter nearby.  The teen pigs came running back to our facility and one collapsed by our house, having been shot and wounded.  We saw the pig was dying slowly and in pain.  So we euthanized the pig in full view of the entire herd.  Not sure how this would be handled by the other pigs, we assumed our relationship and research opportunities would be ended since we had just become another human with a gun.  With the pigs watching we removed the dead pig and then placed flowers and palm fronds where it died as an offering of sympathy to the other pigs.  The pigs all watched and seemed to accept what we were doing. For the next two weeks, all of the pigs would go to that one place and stand around silently as if mourning.  Not a sound, no rooting, no activity other than standing in silence.  After two weeks, we would occasionally see CoCo go back to that area alone and stand there in silence.  Like elephants and other intelligent animals, pigs can experience grief and with their long memory, will continue to feel that grief and often depression for a long time.

If you decide to donate on behalf of CoCo, we will take your donation and use it to try to find a cure for her disease and provide her with the Contraception vaccine.