Hog hunt intensifies
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Jimmy Kazlauskas prepares to bait a hog trap behind a house in Deep Creek Thursday.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Hog trapper Jimmy Kazlauskas points out an area in a Deep Creek greenbelt where feral pigs have ripped up the sod.
SUN FILE PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
This feral pig captured by trapper Jimmy Kazlauskas in 2012 was one of some 900,000 wild hogs inhabiting Florida. An invasive species that is both wily and a prolific breeder, feral pigs root up the ground and devour acorns, grubs and roots causing problems for native wildlife and property owners.
SUN FILE PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Tom Lafoy, a volunteer who works with hog trapper Jimmy Kazlauskas, tends to somef feral pigs at his pen south of Punta Gorda in this March 2012 photo. The volunteers feed them corn for a month before donating their meat for charity barbecues.
DEEP CREEK — When a 550-pound wild boar began terrorizing a five-block area of Rotonda last fall, tearing up lawns and following children in hopes of getting handouts, property owners called Jimmy “The Trapper” Kazlauskas of Animal Relocation Services.
Kazlauskas, a roofing contractor based in Punta Gorda who sidelines as a nuisance wildlife trapper, has been trapping hogs for some 20 years. In the last couple, however, he likely could have made trapping his full-time occupation, if he charged money for his services.
