Feral Hogs and Supplemental Feeding of Wildlife

As feral hogs get a foothold in many parts of North Carolina how to slow them down should be paramount as we look to prevent their enviable expansion. One can look at a state like Texas and all the problems they have because of feral hogs.
While hogs in Texas are certainly a much bigger problem than they are here if we are not careful in a number of years we may be where Texas is today. North Carolina like Texas allows supplemental feeding of whitetail deer and thus feral hogs. Supplemental feed for hogs just makes life easier for them and encourages them to expand.
I came across an interesting Texas Ag article about a recent study to use fencing to block hogs from supplemental feed but allowing deer access.

However, a new study conducted at the Welder Wildlife Foundation near Sinton showed that is it possible to design fencing that allows deer access to feeders while excluding feral hogs, said Dr. Billy Higginbotham, AgriLife Extension fisheries and wildlife specialist.

In Texas alone, feral hogs cause $52 million of damage to crops and pastures annually, he said. “And that does not include damage to wildlife food plots, wildlife feeds and feeders, or to recreational areas like parks, golf courses and landscapes.”

To curtail the damage, landowners hunt and trap feral hogs, he said. But at the same time, Texas hunters and landowners put out approximately 300 million pounds of shelled corn annually, primarily for white-tailed deer, spending an estimated $50 million. Feral hogs crash the party by raiding the feeding sites and eating the corn, often preventing deer and other wildlife from visiting at all.

The party crashing does more than just deny supplemental feed to white-tailed deer and other wildlife. Better-fed feral hog sows are more likely to produce more piglets per litter, and those piglets have a higher survival rate, Higginbotham said.

Fencing seemed the answer to the problem, he said, but how high was high enough to stop hogs and low enough to admit deer?

To answer this question Higginbotham devised a cooperative study with Dr. Tyler Campbell, wildlife biologist and station leader at the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services-National Wildlife Research Center near Kingsville.

Higginbotham and Campbell enclosed deer-feeder sites with fences of three heights – 20 inches, 28 inches and 34 inches. All fences used six 16-foot long panels, staked with steel T-posts and arranged in a circular pattern around feeders. During July and August, remote sensing cameras, which are tripped by motion, were used to record deer and feral hog traffic. The cameras recorded traffic before the fencing was erected and then for two weeks after in late July and early August.

Before the fencing, the automatic cameras recorded 5.3, 3.1 and 4.7 hog visits per hour for sites No. 1 (34-inch fence), No. 2 (28-inch fence) and No. 3 (20-inch fence), respectively. Deer visits per hour were 0.8, 1.4 and 0.1 respectively for sites 1, 2 and 3.

Once the fencing was installed, all three heights limited feral-hog access, but the two highest fences excluded them completely. To a small degree, the 34-inch fencing and the 28-inch fencing limited some deer access as well, but the overall effect on deer traffic was minimal as they could easily jump the fences, Higginbotham said.

With the fencing, hog visits per hour were reduced to 0.0, 0.0 and 1.8 for sites 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Deer visits per hour were negligibly reduced to 0.66 from 0.8 for the 34-inch fencing, but actually doubled for the 24-inch fencing and more than quadrupled for the 20-inch fencing, he said.

Why the increase of deer visits for the two lower height fencing?
Higginbotham posits that deer started visiting the feeders once “the neighborhood improved” as the hogs were excluded.

“We don’t know for sure but that’s a good bet,” he said.
Because of these results, Higginbotham and Campbell are recommending 28-inch fencing.

“The 28-inch high panels worked as well as the 34-inch high panels at excluding hogs,” Higginbotham said. “Therefore, 60-inch wide panels can be purchased and ripped lengthwise down the middle to create a least-cost exclosure.”

The cost of the panels and T-posts was $115 for the 20-inch high fencing, $170 for the 28-inch, and $187 for the 34-inch, he said.

Bandera County Courier

Areas in North Carolina where hogs currently are hunters and landowners should take steps to prevent or at least slow down their expansion across the state.

Herd of Pigs Take Over North Carolina School’s Playground

 

Fox 8

What is probably a sign of what is to come a small herd of pigs has taken a likening to a Guilford County School’s playground. Stokesdale Elementary school has had to cancel outside recess at the school until animal control can rid the playground of pigs. It is unclear if these are pigs that have escaped from someone or if they are feral pigs.
Feral pig populations across North Carolina and really the southern United States is exploding and growing virtual unchecked. Pigs are very prolific and will multiply quickly as well as very adaptable and hard to eradicate once they become established. Many hunters will look on the pig as a blessing because of the added hunting opportunities it provides however once established many of these hunters and landowners will see the pigs as a curse as they destroy the land and many native species. Hogs should be viewed as an invasive species and dealt with as such.

Feral Hogs In North Carolina

Get a group of hunters together these days and someone is bound to ask about hog hunting. Feral hogs continue to expand their territory across the state but they are not so wide spread that many of the hunters encounter them much. Feral hogs are domestic hogs that have gotten lose and have reverted back to their wild side. Hunters for the most part love the opportunity to have another specie to hunt but most landowners and farmers hate them because of the damage they do do the land and crops.

Feral hogs I believe will be viewed as a curse if and when they establish themselves like they have in places like Texas. I can wait to have this hunting opportunity available to me. I know that Caswell County has been having an issue with them and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has contracted with trappers to help remove them. Johnston County has had them for a number of years and limited hunting opportunities are available through Johnston Community College Howell Woods. I did a story a while back about Harnett County and the problems they were having.

A recent news story in the Salisbury Post reports on how one was struck in Rowan County;

Kenneth Miller was watching television in his house at 13360 Old Beatty Ford Road — about a half-mile from Emmanuel Church Road — shortly after 8:30 p.m. Sunday when he heard a crash.

“It sounded like one car hitting another car,” Miller said. “I was expecting the worst.”What he got instead of a car crash was a wild hog. A darn big one.

Miller said Kelly Barringer, 43, of Albemarle, was driving a Chevrolet Suburban along Old Beatty Ford Road and struck and killed the wild boar after it lumbered into the road in front of him.

“He told me he saw it a split-second before he hit it,” Miller said.

It took Barringer a ways to stop. He turned around and returned. Miller hustled from his house, the first to arrive with a flashlight.

He approached the dead boar from its backside. The creature was stretched out in the roadway, steam still rising from its hide.

“I thought it was a bear at first,” Miller said.

Eventually, he and a handful of others investigated the creature more closely and saw it was a boar.

A very, very distant relation to Piglet.

Miller said he stepped the creature off and determined it was 6-feet long from the tip of its tail to the top of its snout. He estimated its weight at at least 300 pounds.

“I weigh 200 pounds and I’ll bet it’s twice as big as I am,” Miller said.

Where it came from is anybody’s guess. Miller said his beagle has been barking at something in the dark on recent nights.

He wondered if the dog was yapping at the hog hiding in the woods, doing whatever it is that 300-plus-pound hogs do.

Miller said he was certain the hog wasn’t a domestic animal that escaped from a neighboring pen. It had two tusks, Miller said, though one had apparently been broken off in its collision with the Suburban.

“It was as wild as could be,” Miller said of the animal.

Tommy Rainey is another resident of the area and showed up at the accident site with a camera. He said the Suburban’s collision with the boar did considerable damage to the front left side of the vehicle, knocking a hole in its radiator.

I suspect that those who want the opportunity to hunt hogs will have a number of options in the next few years as the population explodes. I’m also certain some of us will be unhappy with the damage these critters will cause and the impact on native species and flora.

Post by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Feral Hogs Moving In Cades Cove

Feral hogs have long been a problem in Great Smoky National Park and now they seem to be moving into the Cades Cove area of the park. At least visitors are starting to see them. Feral Hogs are very destructive and although you can try to control them it is unlikely you can ever eradicate them.

“The Park has had a wild hog management program since the mid-1970s to try and control the population,” Gray said. “There is no way we will ever remove all the wild hogs. They are extremely prolific at reproduction. There is no distinct breeding time for wild hogs, so they can breed throughout the year. Hogs normally have two litters a year and a normal litter is five but they can have up to nine piglets.

“They are very prolific and in the terrain of the Park it is hard to restrict them. We feel we are holding the hog population in check.”

European wild boars were imported in 1912 from Germany to a hunting preserve at Hooper’s Bald in North Carolina, which is on Cherohala Skyway in Cherokee National Forest about 15 miles southwest of the Smokies.

After being imported in 1912, “the wild hogs multiplied in that location and escaped to the mountains in 1920. On the way they interbred with feral pigs (wild domestic pigs) and the resulting stock looks like the wild pigs. They have tusks, a mane and dark, hairy fur,” Gray said.

The average weight for males is 125 pounds.

Cades Cove seems to be an ideal place for the hogs to move into with lots of mast crops for them to feed on. The problem is they’ll compete with native species for the food.

“Cades Cove is an ideal spot for wild hogs for several reasons. One is that they enjoy damp areas where they can do their wallowing behavior. They have no sweat glands so they need to find areas where they can cool off,” she said.

There are several areas in the flood plain and wetlands in Cades Cove where the hogs can wallow.

The wallowing creates depressions, which can cause erosion problems. Also, wild hogs carry bacteria, which can wind up in the streams and wetlands near where they wallow.

They use their snouts to root for food — plants, rhizomes and grubs. Areas where the wild hogs have rooted look like a rototiller has been at work, Gray said.

Basically wild hogs will eat almost anything — flowering plants, grubs, snakes, vertebrates, bird eggs and salamanders.

However, their mainstay food is hard mast crops — any kind of nuts, such as acorns, hickory nuts and walnuts.

Cades Cove is a prime area at this time of year because the acorns and other nuts are beginning to fall.

Hard mast is also a main crop for the larger mammals, like bear and deer, as well as a cadre of smaller Park residents.

Quotes and photo from the Daily Times

Story by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

History Channel’s Monster Quest Explores Mega Hogs

ESPN
There is no doubt that across much of the country feral hog populations are growing leaps and bounds. Here in North Carolina what was once isolated problem in just a handful of areas is now a problem in many areas across the state. Within the feral hog population is there a strain of monster size hogs or hogzilla that will see more and more of? Stories like the National Geographic story a while back and the story of the little boy killing a monster pig has fueled speculation that such a strain exists. Both these stories have been stretched and are don’t seem to hold up to public scrutiny.

I have no doubt that there are some huge hogs out there but I believe that for a hog to exceed 1200lbs or more he either has been pen raised and released or he is being fed something to get him to grow that big. I find it hard to believe that on it’s own a pig could grow that big. We have a few large hogs in North Carolina but nothing close to the size reported in these two national stories. None the less once a hog gets over 500 lbs in my book that’s a big hog and not one I’d want to encounter in the wild with out my 30/06.

I’ll admit I missed the show last night it bumped up against the hockey game. So if your like me and missed Monster Quest there will be a few more opportunities to catch this episodes airing. The marvel of satellite TV. So check it out.

Police Chase Ends When Pigs Capture Car Thief

Before my Law Enforcement friends get upset at me about a derogatory name calling let me tell you what happened in Germany. Seems a car thief was captured after he fled from a stolen car into nearby woods and into the middle of a herd of wild hogs.

Police in Schwerin say the 18-year-old abandoned a stolen SUV he was driving Thursday after failing to shake off a chasing patrol car by driving into a field.
Police nabbed his passenger immediately. But they say the driver initially got away by running into nearby woods.
Officers then heard the fugitive shouting for help – he had run into a herd of angry wild boars that were keen to protect their young.
Police freed the man from the boars and took him into custody.

WRAL
A strange story for sure but far from boar ing

DuPont State Forest Bear Hunt Is A No Go Once Again

This past year in response to concerns over nuisance calls about bears in and around Dupont State Forest the Wildlife Commission attempted to have a limited draw hunt. That hunt was canceled because of issues around the use of dogs and the rules prevented the NCWRC from enacting such a hunt. Well the NCWRC got those rules changed and plans were being made to hold a limited draw hunt on bears and feral hogs.
The Division of Forestry Resources citing public opposition has rejected the NCWRC plans and instead has decided to “study” the bear population within the park. Opposition to the hunt cites a state forest rule that requires dogs to be on a leash but a rule that is not enforced.

Transylvania County resident Charles Parris, who represents sportsmen on the advisory committee, favored allowing the bear and raccoon hunts. Parris said dogs already roam freely in DuPont because it is hard to enforce the leash law.

He said he was not surprised by the decision, but was not happy about it.

“I still think there’s plenty of bear. I know there are,” said Parris, who hunts deer but not bear. “I still think really and truly they should have listened to the wildlife resources on it. They know the population.”

Blue Ridge

Bears and other wildlife are a renewable resource that has to be properly managed and hunting is one of the best tools to control the population. We’ll continue to follow this story.

On another note this week is bear week on Moose’s Wild America so stop by and see some of my bear photos.

60 Seconds Is all it Takes

Earlier I posted about the story out of Florida about the Marlins Pitcher Logan Kensing and the stir he caused when he talked about shooting feral pigs from a helicopter on a family owned ranch in Texas. This is perfectly legal in Texas despite the attempts of animal rights group to tie this activity to the illegal activities of Michael Vick. This whole thing began when Logan gave a 60 second interview to a reporter with Palm Beach Post and answered the question “What’s most interesting thing you did this off-season?”

Here is a link to the short interview. One might wonder if Logan wishes he answered the question differently if he had it to do all over? I don’t know for sure but I doubt it. Although many of us are not a pro sports figure we face these types of questions and dilemmas often in our daily life.

I’ll admit that in the past depending on my audience I may alter my response to the question “what ya do over the weekend (vacation)?” but I find myself doing that less and less. Hunting is such an important hobby in my life that I’m proud and unapologetic about what I do.

Many alter their “killing” to “harvesting” which I guess is a more pc term but we can’t hide what it is we do because it supports the argument of those who oppose us by making us look ashamed of what we do. Hunting is a tradition and really part of our American culture so be proud of it. Stand up and be ready for your 60 seconds because you never know when you’ll get your chance.

Animal Rights Wackos Try To Make Logan Kensing Out To Be Another Michael Vick

Logan Kensing a pitcher for the Florida Marlins is now in the crosshairs of the fringe left because of his off season legal actions to help manage feral pigs and coyotes by shooting them from a helicopter. Logan hunts them on a family owned ranch in Texas that they manage for deer hunting. These animal rights groups wish to tie a legal practice to a highly illegal activity of dog hunting and the Michael Vick case.

Texas as many other states are having a problem with feral hogs as they reproduce at such a fast rate that control of them is important to prevent them from destroying both native fauna and wildlife. Once again this is an attack by the wackos with a hope that the mainstream populace will follow them and oppose such wildlife control practices. They know that aerial control of certain species is used rarely but in places where it is they will protest it with the hopes they’ll gain ground on their ultimate endeavor to end the practice of killing animals for any reason and to end man’s ownership of animals.

The Palm Beach Post has a video that was provided to them by Logan I’m not sure who did the editing but it seems to try to blur the issue because it appears he is hunting deer when he is hunting hogs.

We need to stand up to these idiots and not allow a legal practice be so easily tied to an illegal practice such as dog fighting. When the Michael Vick story broke many in the animal rights community attempted to tie the practice to hunting and here we go once again.

Grand Jury To Look Into Case Of Animal Cruelty In Killing of Alabama Hog?

This past spring a story that certainly made its rounds, on both traditional news outlets as well as many blogs, involving the killing of a huge hog in Alabama by an 11 year old boy with a handgun. This story caused a big stir and fueled the canned hunting debate. ESPN is now running a story from a media ethics think tank called Stinky Journalism that reports that this “hunt” is or will be the subject of a grand jury investigation.

The report on Stinky Jornalism seems to have some damming evidence that suggests that the adults involved in this situation certainly did not have this young man’s best interest in mind in this endeavor. If this report is accurate should this young man be held responsible for his actions? Good question I’m not sure there is enough information for me to really render an opinion either way.

The family has there version of the story as well.

Hogzilla Carolina Style

Anyone that has doubts about feral hogs getting a strong hold here in North Carolina should check out today’s N&O. Donald Strickland took this huge pig in Nash County.

“He stunk like a rodeo goat,” Strickland said.
A backhoe was used to load the hog into Strickland’s pickup truck, and a trip over to the Tri-County Peanut Warehouse scale in Enfield confirmed a weight of 780 pounds. It measured 6 feet, 9 inches long from nose to tail.

Check out the rest of the story at the N&O although no records are kept on feral hogs it is believed that this is the largest one ever taken in the state.