Problems, concerns feral hogs can cause
Last week, my wife and I were headed home and across the highway came a sounder of feral hogs. In our area, a school district van hit a hog while going on its route to pick up students early one morning last year.
Last week, my wife and I were headed home and across the highway came a sounder of feral hogs. In our area, a school district van hit a hog while going on its route to pick up students early one morning last year.
They are an ever-growing problem in Oklahoma. It isn’t just happening in the woods anymore. You see evidence of them in your planted crop fields, vegetable gardens, parks, golf courses and other areas. They encroach more on populated areas each year.
When they tore through my wife’s flowers a few years back, she wanted to put pulled pork sandwiches on the family menu. It’s no secret feral hogs are a real problem in many counties across “The Sooner State” It is not going away in the foreseeable future.
Feral swine are not native to the Americas. They were first brought here in the 1500s by early explorers and settlers as a source of food. Free-range livestock management practices and escapes from enclosures led to the establishment of the feral swine population.
Chances are if you are a landowner or have a hunting lease, you’ve had an encounter with feral swine. If not, consider yourself blessed.
I read an article by Terry Madewell from “Game & Fish (South)” regional outdoor guide. Feral swine must expand their search for vittles.
Madewell continued to say that the rain doesn’t bother them. Hogs will continue to move and feed in the rain, so hunters need to be aware of this fact.
Feral swine have become a concern across Oklahoma because of their increasing numbers and the damage they inflict to the landscape.
“Each year, we have an increase in the feral hog population, with the exception of the recent drought year of 2022,” said Jeff Pennington, a wildlife supervisor at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC). “Due to the dry conditions in 2022, the numbers of all species were down. Studies done at the Lexington Wildlife Area by the controlled hunts and the pulling of deer jawbones showed the deer weighed 15 to 20 percent less than normal.”
Scott Alls, the Oklahoma state director of wildlife for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection, said that thanks to federal grants from Congress, they were able to increase their helicopter fleet from two to five helicopters. In areas where they were allowed to harvest feral hogs, they eliminated quite a number and a significant reduction in the swine was noted.
They have been detected in virtually all of the state’s 77 counties, but they are most prevalent across the southern parts of Oklahoma. They also are most active at night.
Feral hogs congregate in groups called “sounders.” Each sounder can tear up several acres every night looking for food. A feral hog will eat about four percent of its body weight daily.
Besides property destruction, other concerns about feral swine are:
• Population Growth — Feral swine have high reproductive potential, and piglets become sexually active at about 6 months old. Estimates place the feral swine population in Oklahoma from 600,000 to 1.5 million. In drought years, the swine are under stress and don’t breed as often.
• Disease Transmission — Feral swine can be infected with brucellosis and leptospirosis, which can be passed to people. Pseudorabies is found in about one-third of the feral swine population. This disease can spread to dogs, cattle, goats and sheep. Feral hogs also can carry and transmit many other diseases.
• Threat to Wildlife — Feral swine activity puts stress on native species. The swine consume food resources that also support deer, raccoons, black bears and opossums. Wildlife can contract many diseases from feral swine. Feral swine have few natural predators, and, in some cases, the feral swine have begun pursuing wild animals as prey.
State agencies and landowner groups are highly interested in what can be done to control the feral swine problem. Experts have determined that the best methods are trapping — especially whole sounder trapping — and aerial gunning.
Landowners who have experienced depredation due to feral swine can contact the state Agriculture Department’s Wildlife Services Division at (405) 521-4039.
Eradication is not realistic on a landscape level. A realistic landscape goal is to slow the spread and reduce the density of feral hogs through different methods.
The ODWC views feral swine as vermin and maintains they should not be glamorized in any way, even though feral hogs are desired by some people as target animals on hunting lands.
I also picked up a copy of “North American Whitetail’s Hog Hunting” magazine. The article “Before They Were Feral” by Joe Pinson offered a glimpse into southeastern Oklahoma’s hog history and reveals that these now-hated creatures were once a treasured resource for survival.
The author recounts a time when livestock and pigs roamed the open countryside and fences were around gardens or crop land.
It was a time “before sale barns came into existence” and reminds us that “the famous Hatfield and McCoy feud actually began over a hog.”
There’s no need to start a feud because there are plenty of hogs to be had.
Oklahoma outfitters have hog hunt packages if you can’t find a farmer or landowner who desperately wants the swine population reduced. I use the term “reduced” because eliminating them totally is a long shot.
John Kilgore is the former Greenleaf State Park manager. He can be reached by e-mailing him at jkilgoreoutdoors@yahoo.com.
