A large number of wild hogs besieged a Virginia golf course and caused three days of closures, NBC12 reports.
As of Wednesday, the dogs on rescue teams had freed 29 of the animals, most of which died. The dogs — animal control officers and members of Smithfield’s volunteer reserve police force — are now tracking all the hogs down, spending much of their days chasing them across the woods.
Travis Prissler, who was visiting from Texas, told the station that he initially thought they were raccoons because they appeared to be getting up close to the cobbler. He says at one point the hogs kicked a hole in his friend’s window.
The hogs first made themselves known about four weeks ago.
“Everybody up here is petrified of them,” Scott Luther, who lives in nearby Nanuet, told NBC12. “I didn’t like it. A bunch of them kept coming by in the morning and the night time and it kept me on edge.”
Officials closed Smithfield Valley Golf Course and Forest Reserve Plantation in July, a few days after the first sightings. They shut down the course in mid-August while they worked to clear the animals.
“It was pretty intense, it was very emotional,” said Edwin Chappell, who works at the resort. “Probably more emotionally draining than any sort of game I’ve ever seen.”
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