Researchers Finding New Ways To Control Wild Pig Numbers
(Courtesy Photo/Texas AgriLife Extension Service)
BETTER HOG TRAP: Research has shown that if the goal is to control pig numbers a rounded trap made from heavy cattle panels works better because it holds more pigs. Researchers nationwide are working on other control methods.
The number of wild pigs in Texas reaches to the millions. How many millions? It is uncertain.
Best guesses are 1 1/2 to 2 million, but that is a number that has been around for quite some time and could be conservative, if not
very conservative. At last count, they could be found in 234 of the state’s 254 counties.
Causing more than $50 million in damage, another old and possibly conservative figure, they are universally disliked by agricultural producers. Deer managers across much of the state have much the same feeling.
Steve Knight
Only the state’s hunters and a limited number of landowners selling hunts can find something endearing about the wild pigs. That is because they offer a different and often unlimited target that has proven to be lucrative. Not listed as a game animal, there is no season or bag limit on the pigs. The main reason for that is all of state’s hunters couldn’t hunt them out of existence.
Wild pigs are prolific, becoming old enough to breed at about eight months and capable of having two litters per year.
To date the only thing that has effectively slowed the pigs are pigs. The herds spread diseases among themselves. One is swine brucellosis, a disease that can cause infertility in boars and result in abortions in sows.
However, there is research going on nationwide, including several projects in Texas, which could lead to controlling wild hog numbers. The word elimination doesn’t come into play.
“In Texas, that ship has sailed,” said Dr. Billy Higginbotham, a feral pig expert with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Overton. “In Kansas, where they only had a few of them, they made it illegal to hunt them. From an agricultural standpoint that was brilliant. It took away the incentive for clandestine stockings.”
The history of wild pigs in Texas is as old as the history of Europeans in the state. They were first brought here by Spanish explorers more than 500 years ago.
However, it was the much-later practicing of allowing the pigs to winter in the woods that feral population began to expand. It took its final leap as hunters began to transport them to their hunting leases around the state as an additional species to hunt. What they didn’t count on was the pigs’ ability to adapt and for the populations to explode and begin to backfill into areas.
During a two-year Feral Hog Abatement Project in Texas, what has been learned is that hunters can’t keep up with the growing numbers. Single traps also don’t work. That has left officials looking at other solutions.
Hunting the pigs from helicopters has proven the most effective control method, but is not practical in the Pineywoods and is an expensive proposition.
“Where you can fly, there is no question that a helicopter is one of the best means to control feral hogs,” Higginbotham said. “You can’t fly here because you have to get telephone poll high.”
During the recently completed study, Higginbotham said Texas Wildlife Services reported taking almost 18 wild pigs per hour of helicopter flight time at a cost of $31 per pig.
“That is pretty efficient when killing 17 an hour. That is almost a hog every three minutes,” he explained.
A more simple solution, the study found, is a bigger, better hog trap.
“Bigger is always better if you have a lot of hogs. If you are seeing 15 or 20 or more, you want a minimum of three, 15- to 16-feet-long, 5-feet high cattle or goat panels with a 4-inch mesh,” Higginbotham said.
Built in somewhat of a round structure, the idea behind the larger trap is to catch more pigs at once. The four-inch mesh is required to keep the smallest pigs in as well. Researchers have found the key to long-term control is elimination of the young piglets.
Higginbotham said researchers learned landowners don’t need a gate on every trap, but can move one from trap to trap depending on which one is active. He also recommends keeping multiple sites baited, and using different baits.
In the future, birth control could also be added to the mix. Research is under way at Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine on a contraceptive. Higginbotham said the research, led by Duane Kraemer, a professor of veterinary physiology and pharmacology, has shown early promise. Given as a shot, it prevented pregnancies for three to five years.
Researchers now have the contraceptive in a capsule form. The problem is finding a delivery method that targets only the wild pigs and not other animals. Higginbotham said USDA Wildlife Services-Kingsville researcher Tyler Campbell is working on the delivery method.
“He looked at a bait used in Australia. It is a commercial bait called Pig Out. It is specific to hogs there. He had everything picking it up here,” Higginbotham said.
And even when a pig-specific delivery source is found, the contraceptive or a toxicant will only have limited impact because not every landowner is going to want to rid themselves of the pigs. At some point back-filling will begin again, but maybe at a point where other landowners have more control.
“It is our best option at long-term control,” Higginbotham said of the contraceptive. “It is not trapping or shooting. What we are doing now is just stop-gap stuff.”
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