FLAGLER BEACH, Fla. – Wild hogs are tearing up a Flagler County cemetery, leaving major damage behind.
Managers at Flagler Memorial Gardens say the problem started about a week ago, with the hogs coming in the middle of the night and digging up the dirt on and around graves. It’s estimated that over a dozen wild hogs and their piglets have been coming to the cemetery at night, searching for food.
“It’s like a hurricane happened. It was over the weekend — just unbelievable the destruction that they did,” said Sal Passalaqua, manager at Flagler Memorial Gardens.
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Unlike a storm, this problem keeps coming back every night.
“It started about a week ago. They started in our new part of the cemetery, they were in the open field, but then on a weekend, they came in here overnight and just started destroying behind us, and it’s been like this every day since,” Passalaqua said.
The cemetery staff has been cleaning the markers to maintain dignity and respect for visitors.
“We’re taking this very seriously,” Passalaqua said.
Grass and dirt are thrown all around the cemetery where the hogs hunt for food. While the actual graves have not yet been disturbed, the hogs are starting to dig deeper.
“They root down about 12 inches, so they’ve taken up about that much earth on top of the grave itself,” Passalaqua explained.
Some believe recent construction projects around Palm Coast and Flagler Beach are forcing the wild hogs to look elsewhere for food. The hog problem has become so severe that it took the cemetery over a week to find a trapper who could fit them into their schedule.
“The trappers themselves don’t have enough traps to even service the customers. So, what they’re doing is they’re baiting them south of the property away from this area. They’ve had cameras on them for a week, they know where they’re coming from, they know how many and when they come out,” Passalaqua said.
The trappers are scheduled to come out Tuesday.
“Once the trapper has the hogs removed from the property, we can then start restoration,” Passalaqua said. “We’re looking at a few thousand dollars or better just between hog trapping and just restoring the cemetery back to the way it was.”
Flagler County has set up a website to report wild hog issues in the area. You can report them here.