SV Chat: The man who traps the Bay Area’s destructive wild pigs
Wild pigs are a notorious source of chaos and property damage in the Bay Area. They’re invasive, destructive and can be dangerous when wielding their sharp tusks.
The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority has its fair share of hog-induced mayhem at the moment. Managers of the 30,000-acre swath are going on the offensive after unsuccessfully attempting to “haze” roving pigs off the property. They’ve hired Full Boar Trapping and Wildlife Control of Contra Costa County to trap and shoot pigs for the next three years — a $243,000 contract. It’s illegal to release trapped animals elsewhere in California.
RELATED: Wild pigs increase around the Bay Area, causing headaches for homeowners, parks and water agencies
The outfit is run by Vince Bruzzone, 35, who is also armed with a master’s degree in agri-business and wisdom gleaned from hunting in the wild pig hotbed of Texas. Bruzzone mostly plies his trade trapping pigs, skunks and raccoons in Contra Costa County. His work in Santa Clara County is just getting started, he said.
The wild pigs of the South Bay, however, are intelligent and tenacious creatures. Bay Area News Group caught up with Bruzzone to learn how he out-smarts hogs and removes them from an ecosystem.
Q: Do wild pigs have any natural predators or any limits to their population growth?
A: Not directly. When you have a sow that has piglets, she’s super protective. I’ve heard that mountain lions won’t even really come after them because they will fight them off. They’re big enough to keep packs of coyotes off of them. Maybe if there’s a stray piglet here and there, they could be taken out. But for the most part, in California, nothing is really going to mess with a full grown pig.
Q: Do you specialize in wild pig removal?
A: We specialize mainly in pigs, but we also do smaller non-game mammals. We mainly focus a lot of our efforts towards pigs just because it’s what we do best.
Q: How do you trap and kill a wild pig?
A: When we enter new land, we like to see what resources are there — the historical aspect of where the pigs have been moving in from, the seasonality of it. Is there any water on the land? The pre-work is important to find these perfect trap spots. The traps that we build are big, Texas-style corral traps. It’s a lot of equipment, and we don’t want to be moving them around all the time.
We don’t want traps to be in public view if the property has public access. We don’t want it to be an eyesore to people, you know? People have different feelings about this method of removing animals.
Q: The traps are metal corrals?
A: Exactly. Once we determine a trap site, we’ll do a lot of conditioning and pre-baiting. That’s probably the most important part of the process. Pigs are smart. So you need to make them steadily feel more and more comfortable with an artificial setup. Anything that looks, feels, smells like a metal apparatus is danger. We use different types of bait at different times of the year.
We have cameras set up — live feeds. Everything is remote. We get motion alerts when we see deer come through, mountain lions. We will see all sorts of wildlife. And then the pigs will show up. We use remote triggers so we can control closing of the trap.
Q: So, you get an alert when an animal is near the trap. Then you click a button on your phone to close them in?
A: Yeah. If (a property owner) runs dogs or hunts to try to get rid of the pigs, it just pushes them to become more nocturnal. Which means that’s a lot of 3 a.m. wake-ups to traps for me. The typical captures are anywhere from six to 20 pigs at a time.
We coordinate with all local authorities where we’re going to be discharging firearms in a safe manner. We typically notify the authorities, ‘Hey, we have pigs in a trap here. We’re going to be discharging firearms between these hours.’ And we have to fill out quite a bit of paperwork to document what was there, when, where, and what permit it’s under.
We go and dispatch them, and then, you know, count them. It’s generally one shot per pig. And we do it quick just so they’re not in that situation for a long time.
Q: Do you donate the carcasses?
A: Yeah, I’d say 90% or 95% of the time. Over the years, we have a list of local families that actually rely on the meat.
Q: How’d you get into this business?
A: I’ve always been an avid outdoorsman, hunter-fisherman. I studied agribusiness in college and then went to grad school out in Texas and got into more of the pig control methods out there. I had a trapping partner and mentor, Chris Davies, who taught me everything I know. Pigs became a bigger problem in Texas probably a decade before California, or even more, and continue to wreak havoc on agricultural lands throughout the state.
Q: How’s business?
A: It’s good. It’s somewhat seasonal. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s gonna be a pretty busy year.
Q: You’re a solo operation?
A: Right now, solo operation. I can cover a pretty good amount of ground.
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Vince Bruzzone
Age: 35
City of residence: Moraga
Birthplace: Berkeley
Education: Bachelor’s degree at Cal Poly, agri-business; Master’s degree at Texas A&M, agri-business.
Five things about Vince
- Favorite animal: Horses.
- Least favorite animal: Gophers. “We have a small vineyard,” Bruzzone said. “They’ll take out whole grapevines in a night.”
- Favorite hobbies: Free diving and spear fishing.
- Favorite musician: Colter Wall. “He’s basically a cowboy that writes and performs on the side, but is now pretty well in the spotlight,” Bruzzone said.
- Pets: He lives on a small ranch with horses, barn cats and sheep. He’s thinking about getting a dog.