Ossabaw Island lies just 20 miles south of downtown Savannah, but if you want to visit it, you’re going to need a boat — and permission.
One of the largest barrier islands in Georgia, Ossabaw is a paradise renowned for its natural beauty, with pristine, white sand beaches, wooded areas with oak-lined paths, and fresh water ponds that lure lots of wildlife.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Ossabaw Island was run by The Ossabaw Foundation, founded by Sandy West and Clifford B. West. Through their Ossabaw Island Project, they made the island a creative retreat for artists and scientists. Writers including Ralph Ellison and Margaret Atwood spent time on the isolated island to work in peace.
Credit: Photo by Bill Dawers/For Savannahnow.com
Credit: Photo by Bill Dawers/For Savannahnow.com
Composers Aaron Copeland and Samuel Barber took refuge there to work on music. Even after the project ended in 1978, and the State of Georgia took over the island as a Heritage Preserve, the island continues to be used by authors and artists for annual retreats.
Visitors need to apply for a trip to Ossabaw Island. They can come for a day trip to the beach, for a specially arranged two-night stay, or for organized hunting trips. The hunting trips are particularly important for the ecosystem of the island because of one of its most interesting, but destructive residents: the Ossabaw hog.
The Ossabaw hog is a feral pig unique to the island. They are descended from pigs brought over in the 16th century by Spanish explorers and have been a bane to the other creatures on the island ever since.
Credit: Justin Davis, Getty Images/iStockphoto
Credit: Justin Davis, Getty Images/iStockphoto
The small, hearty hogs breed like crazy and are omnivorous, so they will eat anything and everything, including reptiles, roots, and furry animals. Their most detrimental impact on the ecology is eating the eggs of endangered species like loggerhead turtles and snowy plovers.
Keeping the hogs in check is a full-time job and there is a staff on the island to control the population with rifles.
Ossabaw hogs are small in size, sometimes as little as 100 lbs. They usually have black fur, but sometimes have spots of white. They have long snouts that are perfect for rooting in the soil, and oddly enough, have adapted a high salt tolerance in their diet that makes them perfectly suited for marshland environments.
No pigs are native to North America, but many varieties have evolved through breeding over the centuries. The Ossabaw hog, however, has changed very little and most resembles the pigs brought over by the Spanish, making them a popular choice for historic farming interpretive programs.
Ossabaw hogs have been bred on the mainland for research (and artisanal pork), so if the pesky ones on the island have to be permanently removed (which is highly recommended by environmentalists) we won’t lose one of Georgia’s special little porkers.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: That’s So Savannah: Does an island in Georgia have its own breed of pig?
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