When Andrew West heard the wild pigs in the distance, his pulse quickened. Whatever the wildlife expert was thinking, the thought died right there and he was off, running toward them.

“This place is just infested,” West said a moment later as a cameraman with the Discovery Channel zoomed in for a closeup. “It’s 10:30 in the morning and I’m hearing pigs screaming. It normally doesn’t happen. It has the chickens upset,” he said.

And with good reason. On the Kona coast, where West’s friends call him the Pig Whisperer, these marauding animals are a huge problem. They’ve wreaked havoc on crops, backyards and the nerves of homeowners who tell West they’re too scared to walk outside their homes at night.

Of course, that sort of thing makes for entertaining television.

The Discovery Channel was so excited by this primal battle of man vs. beast that the network made West a regular on its new series “Hogs Gone Wild.”

The series, which premiered with three episodes in January and resumes tonight, explores the problem nationwide by following animal control experts who are trying to deal with more than 6 million feral pigs.

The 47-year-old West, founder of a Big Island animal control company called the Pacific Ecology Laboratory, is a high-energy Australian transplant who seems to have no fear. He’ll jump into a pen to wrestle a wild pig.

Although hunting pigs is common on the Big Island, a lot of people don’t know what to do when wild pigs arrive like hairy, four-legged bulldozers, West said.

The pigs will knock down fences, uproot rows of fruit trees and chew up irrigation lines — overnight.

At upward of 200 pounds, young males can be aggressive, territorial and intimidating.

On “Hogs Gone Wild,” West comes to the rescue.

“I’ve had people call in tears,” West said in a telephone interview from Kona. “Their fear is not exaggerated. Over the last few years in particular, we’ve had a drought and the pigs are getting more and more bold.”

At one high-end golf course that has West on contract, he’s captured 1,200 feral pigs in the past three years.

West tries to trap the pigs rather than kill them outright but they’re still headed for a barbecue or an imu. He gives them away.

 “I feel like I am doing a service to the environment but there are a lot of hungry families here in Hawaii and that plays heavy on my heart,” West said. “I love feeding people and I love taking care of the environment.”

But these pigs are smart. West has stalked some for years without success. Ginger, a 300-pound sow, was especially vexing. The last time he saw her, trotting

toward him on a trail, he was thinking pork recipes when she stopped about 80 yards away to check her surroundings.

Then she fled.

“She knew something was wrong,” he said. “And that, in a nutshell, is what we are looking at. This large, intelligent animal who has learned to survive, learned to adapt to any environment. That is why they are flourishing in pretty much every state in the U.S.”