Contact Us John Kimbrough Blvd. Latest Tweets Please wait Wild Pig Resources Sign up to receive wild pig resources and stay up to date with the latest news! View our latest resources. Developed by. For thousands of years, wild and domestic animals have been sold as food.
Human civilization was made possible in large part by free-ranging, foraging pigs that converted natural feed and human scraps into food which humans could eat. Before refrigeration free-ranging pigs were walking larders.
Wild-ranging domestic pigs would be valuable assets for landowners if we went back to the rules that applied until 30 years ago, which allowed them to be sold into the commercial food chain.
They are not wrong about the environmental damage of the meat factories. Meanwhile however, there is enough free-ranging Texas pork to feed much of the country and these animals when properly managed improve the environment. Free-range pork carries less disease than pork produced in our filthy, environmentally disastrous and inhumane meat factories.
A rollover accident on SH near Manor that left a semi-truck driver injured was caused by feral hogs, officials said Friday. Authorities said the driver slowed down when they noticed the hogs on the road, but they still got in his way and he swerved to avoid them causing the truck to roll over.
Wild pigs also cause damage to hay fields, orchards, farming equipment, and fences. The human population of the United States is rapidly growing, and the majority of that population lives in urban areas. In general, the resulting expansion of urban sprawl has increased human-wildlife interactions That trend along with the recent population growth and range expansion of wild pigs has resulted in an increase in damage to private property and common recreational areas 5.
Wild pigs often seek out food and water in residential areas during times of drought which leads to damage of landscaping, fencing, and irrigation systems in residential areas as well as communal areas such as golf courses and parks 5, 63, In addition, wild pig-vehicle collisions can result in significant property damage as well as human injury and death Because projections show rapid expansion of both human and wild pig populations the frequency of wild pig-vehicle collisions will likely increase, as well Not only do wild pigs physically damage natural resources and agricultural crops, personal property, and equipment, they also have a high potential to transmit various diseases to domestic livestock Wild pigs are capable of carrying and transmitting at least 30 bacterial, fungal, and viral diseases which threaten humans, livestock, and wildlife 7, Some of those which can infect humans are brucellosis, leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, and trichinosis Though disease transmission to humans is a real concern, the largest threat from wild pig diseases is the potential transmission to domestic livestock.
Diseases such as swine brucellosis, pseudorabies, classic swine fever, and African swine fever can result in birth defects and death of various livestock and wildlife species 7. Diseases such as classic swine fever and foot and mouth disease have been eradicated from the United States pork industry and are considered foreign-animal diseases.
Wild pigs, however, have the potential to act as a reservoir for these diseases making it difficult or impossible to eradicate them again in areas with infected wild pig populations A scenario where one of these diseases is reintroduced could cause crippling damage to the United States agricultural industry 7, One extreme scenario is the reemergence of foot and mouth disease in the United States.
For more information on diseases transmissible to humans, domestic animals and wildlife, please see Diseases of Feral Swine PDF. Though non-lethal means of reducing damage from wild pigs is sometimes effective at small scales, the only way to alleviate wide-spread impacts from wild pigs is to reduce the overall population.
Lethal control measures are currently the only effective means of reducing wild pig populations. There are multiple lethal control techniques currently available to land managers and owners in the United States However, no single method approaches the scale necessary to have a significant, long-term effect on wild pig populations across large tracts of land, and most certainly not at a national scale The most popular methods of lethal control currently legal in the United States are trapping and dispatching, ground shooting, and aerial gunning.
Dispatching after trapping is the most popular method of lethal control for wild pigs There are a wide range of trap designs for wild pigs, but they generally fall under two categories; box traps and corral traps.
Box traps vary in design, but are typically enclosed traps that are designed to be easily transportable and set up by one person. These types of traps are most effective when used to target small groups or single animals that frequently cause property damage. The small box traps facilitate transportation from one trap site to another, but limit the number of animals that can be caught at one time. If used to target large sounders, those that are not successfully trapped may develop learned behavior which makes them more difficult to trap in the future Corral traps are typically much larger semi-permanent structures, though there are several portable corral traps commercially available.
These traps allow for more animals to be caught at one time which more effectively reduces populations and increases the cost efficacy of trapping. Studies have found that corral traps provided a capture rate greater than four times that of individual box traps After the initial purchase of either pre-constructed trap or trap building materials, the main contributor to the high costs associated with this method is the time it takes to set up and monitor corral traps Researchers have found that the use of corral traps resulted in the removal of 0.
This equates to approximately 2 to 5 hours of work per each wild pig removed. Efficacy of trapping whole sounders has increased with recent advances in remote camera technology. These motion activated cameras can be used to monitor wild pig activity at trap sites with still photographs or short videos.
The most recent advancement in remote camera technology allows real-time monitoring of wild pig activity on your phone, tablet, or computer using cellular data. Understanding wild pig behavior at a trap site allows trappers to make more educated decisions on when to set the trap trigger so that the number of wild pigs caught is maximized. In addition, the same cellular technology that allows for real-time camera monitoring has facilitated the advent of remotely triggered trap gates.
This allows for trappers to monitor wild pig activity on a personal device in real time and trigger the trap gate remotely from the same device once the entire sounder has entered the trap. Though trapping is one of the most effective means of large-scale population reduction currently available in the United States, its impacts are often limited by the inability to deploy traps in remote areas difficult to reach by vehicle or boat 68, For more information on various trap designs, trapping strategies, and proper implementation, please visit the links below:.
Shooting wild pigs while flying in fixed wing or rotary aircrafts is often referred to as aerial gunning. Aerial gunning is a highly effective means of quickly reducing wild pig populations in areas with large expanses of sparse canopy cover and high densities of wild pigs 5, 73, As visibility and population density decrease, however, so does the efficacy of this method in both cost and reduction of populations 56, 74, Thus, this method is most effective in areas with sparse tree canopy and high wild pig densities.
There is also some debate as to whether or not this method alters behavior in wild pig populations causing them to increase home ranges and learn to avoid aircraft, making them more difficult to find via helicopter 74, 76, In private-land states like Texas, gaining permission and sufficient acreage from contiguous landowners can be a challenge.
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