For years, we’ve all heard about building a wall on the border. But did you know we’re not the only country that’s got a wall controversy? 

If you’ve ever had hogs out on your place, you know what a picnic it is to get them back in. If you’ve ever been around wild hogs, you know they can be scary and dangerous. And if you know anything at all about pigs, you know they can reproduce a lot in a pretty short time.

So what’s that got to do with a border wall? I just read an article about wild hogs invading Denmark. Yes, Denmark. That’s a little country north of Germany. 

Apparently, Denmark has a very lucrative pork industry, with over 5000 pig farms producing around 28 million pigs a year. Maybe this doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that Denmark’s population of people is only 5-6 million! Pigs outnumber people more than 2 to 1.

So anyway, when wild hogs from Germany started crossing the border and coming in to Denmark, something had to be done. The wild hogs were cross-breeding with domestic hogs and also bringing in African swine fever. They were wreaking havoc! 

So, instead of running around yelling, “Who let the hogs out?” Denmark got busy and put up a fence. It was made of hog-proof welded wire and extended underground to prevent them from rooting underneath it. It was only 5 feet tall so that deer and other animals could jump over it, and it has mostly worked. Although there are gaps in the fence where it crosses streams or roads, it has kept most of the wild pigs out and the domestic pigs safe.

However in fences, as in life, there is always someone who is against it. Environmentalists claim that the fence will mess with other animals, such as wolves, otters and jackals.  How a five foot fence would slow down a wolf, I don’t know. Otters would go right through it and then back again fifty times just for fun. Jackals would have about as much trouble with it as a coyote, which is not at all. But still, environmentalists worry about such things.

Occasionally there is still a very determined wild boar that sneaks across looking for a cute little sow, but nobody has reported packs of wolves or otters who are stopped at the border with no place to go.

So next time you find yourself in an argument with someone about the border wall, whip out this information about Denmark’s hogs. It might not win the argument, but it will confuse them enough that they will leave you alone!