Agricultural News
Wild Pigs Perhaps Can be Controlled, but Eradication 'Not a Realistic Goal,' State Legislators Advised
Thu, 20 Oct 2016 15:25:38 CDT
Absent some technological breakthrough, total elimination of wild hogs in Oklahoma is a target that's virtually impossible to achieve, at least for the forseeable future, state legislators were informed Wednesday.
Eradication of all feral hogs in Oklahoma "is not a realistic goal," Jeff Pennington, Central Region supervisor for the Wildlife Division of the state Department of Wildlife Conservation, told members of the House Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
However, he added, the destructive animals can be controlled to some extent.
The interim legislative study was requested by Reps. Brian Renegar, D-McAlester, and Kevin Wallace, R-Wellston. They proposed a bipartisan, comprehensive examination of ways to control wild hogs, an invasive species that numbers an estimated 600,000 to 1.5 million in Oklahoma.
Also attending the study were Rep. Steve Kouplen, D-Beggs, and Rep. Wade Rousselot, D-Okay.
Feral Hogs Found in Most Counties
Feral hogs have been detected in approximately 70 of Oklahoma's 77 counties, said Dr. Justin Roach, a veterinarian with the state Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. The exceptions are the Panhandle and a few other counties in northwestern Oklahoma where there may be a few of the animals but they're "under control," Roach said.
The Agriculture Department reports the wild pigs are especially abundant - 60 or more of the animals per square mile - along the Red River; in Johnston County; the Arbuckle Mountains of Murray County; and in western Comanche County throughout the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge and the Fort Sill military reservation. A southwestern Oklahoma legislator said the wild pig population has "exploded" in southern Cotton County.
The feral hog population is deemed to be moderate (15 to 60 of the animals per square mile) in McCurtain, Choctaw, Bryan, Marshall, Love, Jefferson, Johnston, Latimer, Pittsburg, and western Caddo counties.
The pigs have an ability to reproduce at a relatively fast pace. The animals breed twice a year, and a piglet becomes sexually active in just six months, said Scott Alls, assistant state director of the Wildlife Services program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Wild Hogs are Destructive-
Feral swine roam across the United States and can be found in Canada and several other countries, too - wreaking havoc wherever they take up residence - said Josh Gaskamp, wildlife and range consultant with the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.
"In just one night they can go through three to five acres," said Rep. Dennis Casey, R-Morrison.
Pennington said feral hogs eat 4% of their weight in food each day. Keith Hall, who lives two miles west of Ryan, told the legislators he used to raise watermelons "but the feral hogs put me out of business."
-And Transmit Myriad Diseases
Besides their destructive tendencies, feral swine are carriers of zoonotic diseases such as brucellosis and leptospirosis, related Renegar, who is a veterinarian.
Renegar said a college classmate of his contracted brucellosis when a cow swishing its tail hit the man in the face and the bacteria entered his eye. Consequently, the doctor has experienced fever, chills and headaches for about 36 hours every 28 days for the last 38 years, Renegar said.
Pseudorabies is a Critical Concern
Feral hogs also are carriers of the pseudorabies virus, which Renegar said affects not only swine but also cattle, sheep, goats and dogs.
Pseudorabies is not a food threat to humans but has several adverse effects on swine, said Roy Lee Lindsey, executive director of the Oklahoma Pork Council. "We know there's a reservoir of pseudorabies among feral hogs," he said.
Roach said that serology testing of wild pig carcasses indicates approximately 30% to 35% of all feral hogs in Oklahoma have been exposed to pseudorabies. The state Agriculture Department reports that feral hogs can carry up to 30 diseases.
The beasts are "a nuisance, a menace," Lindsey asserted.
Keeping wild hogs from infecting domestic herds with pseudorabies is "high on our priority list," Lindsey said. Oklahoma ranks eighth in the nation in numbers of swine and fifth nationally in the number of sows "in our breeding herds," he said. Approximately 100,000 head of hogs leave Oklahoma each week, he said, en route to states such as Iowa, Illinois, Texas, Kansas and Missouri to be fattened for market.
Various Efforts to Control Feral Hogs
Landowners, state and federal officials are trapping, shooting and poisoning feral hogs, yet still they multiply.
Matt Napper, president of the Oklahoma Feral Swine Control Association, said that 9,860 hunters killed more than 30,000 feral hogs in this state last year. Alls said USDA hunters transported by helicopters have dispatched approximately 8,200 wild hogs in Oklahoma this year.
"We removed 130 from 40 acres recently, and killed 80 the month before that," he said.
"It seems like you kill one, and half a dozen come to the funeral," Alls quipped.
Roach indicated that certain chemicals designed to affect feral swine exclusively are under study and development. Wildlife officials are taking precautions to protect raccoons, deer, bears and opossums that eat at the same feeding sites that attract feral hogs, he said.
Shooting, Trapping Have Been Effective
According to Pennington, "aerial gunning" and trapping are the most effective techniques for controlling feral hogs. However, the infestation is so widespread that control is effective only in "pockets" of the state and only at certain times, because of a lack of coordinated "We're never going to shoot our way out of this problem," said J.D. Strong, the newly appointed director of the state Wildlife Department. A coordinated program of shooting, baiting and trapping will be required, he said.
Statements uttered during the meeting indicate trapping is the single most effective method of getting rid of feral hogs.
Gaskamp was a co-inventor of a specialized trap called the BoarBuster, a suspended corral trap that can be observed and dropped remotely from any place that has Internet access.
"The problem with high-tech traps is that the average Oklahoman can't afford one," Pennington said. "They're cost-prohibitive."
Furthermore, "It's getting harder to trap these animals," Gaskamp said. "We're educating more and more pigs. You're catching the dumb ones; the smarter ones escape the traps."
Swine are "very intelligent animals," echoed Napper, owner/operator of a hunting preserve near Stonewall.
Hunters Fond of Feral Swine
Not everybody wants feral hogs eradicated.
"Some of our constituents want to have hogs on their property," for hunting purposes, Pennington said.
Roach said Oklahoma has 21 licensed sporting facilities where hunters pay to shoot wild hogs; the number of commercial operations has been capped by the State Board of Agriculture, he said. "We believe we have enough to meet our needs," he explained.
For 16 years Napper and his wife, Cheryl, have bought wild hogs from trappers and released the animals in a segregated section of their 400-acre Shiloh Ranch seven miles south of Stonewall, in Pontotoc County. The Nappers's 230-acre hunting area is enclosed with hog wire that's reinforced with barbed wire at the bottom and the top. Hunters visit their ranch and pay to shoot the wild animals. The Nappers have built cabins and a guest house for their customers.
Sporting facilities such as Shiloh Ranch "have brought in at least $7.2 million" in revenue for Oklahoma, Napper claimed. That's the estimated amount those 9,860 sportsmen spent last year - an average of $730 apiece - on food, lodging, fuel, tips and gratuities, etc., while visiting several of the hunting preserves in Oklahoma, Napper clarified Thursday.
Shiloh Ranch has attracted hunters from Germany, Scotland, England, Denmark, Guam and elsewhere, he said.
'Create a Sustainable, Consistent Market'
Hall told the legislators he has been hunting, trapping and/or selling wild pigs "for 15 to 20 years." He said he has a dozen active traps in which he caught 224 feral pigs in Jefferson County "in just the last 10 days." His traps held 32 animals Thursday morning.
Hall expressed irritation at having to secure a permit from the Agriculture Department for every wild pig he traps. Roach said the agency requires the paperwork because it provides accountability:
- It ensures that transporters of each animal are monitored. According to Roach, Oklahoma has about 1,000 feral-hog transporters.
- The documentation helps deter miscreants from importing feral hogs into Oklahoma from other states. A man from the Broken Bow area was arrested last year while attempting to smuggle 117 feral hogs from Texas into Oklahoma, Renegar recalled.
Hall advised the legislators that incentives are needed in order to "create a sustainable, consistent market" for wild pigs. "I'm not talking about entitlements," he emphasized Thursday. "I'm talking about market incentives."
Trappers and transporters need more high-fence reservations to buy the feral hogs they provide, and sportsmen want private, commercial preserves that afford them a place to hunt the animals.
Hall also suggested development of a meat processing plant in Oklahoma that would accept feral hogs, since conventional slaughterhouses won't.
Roach said that "every week or so" one or more of Oklahoma's "buying stations" sends a load of captured feral hogs to Frontier Meats in Fort Worth, TX, for slaughter. Depending upon the size of the animals, feral hogs command 18¢ per pound, 28¢/pound or 33¢/pound, Hall said.
Renegar recommended that a meat processing plant that slaughters feral hogs should be one of the state's economic development goals. "It's an opportunity to create jobs for Oklahomans."
Source - Oklahoma House of Representatives
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