FAYETTEVILLE -- Five years of efforts have failed to reduce a destructive wild pig population in Arkansas estimated at 200,000, lawmakers learned Thursday.
At least state, local and federal agencies learned what doesn't work, Michael Hoy, wildlife biologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told the Arkansas House and Senate agriculture committees.
The federal Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service teamed up with the state Game and Fish Commission and other state and local agencies to coordinate efforts to eradicate, or at least reduce, the feral pig population in the state.
The drive has been controversial from the start, drawing objections from hog hunters. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who was in Springdale on Thursday for a regional political rally, said he was aware of the issue and that it was "quite a fight."
The descendants of domestic pigs eat crops such as corn and damage flood control levees with their digging for roots. That's just the known damage, Hoy told the committees.
"These animals are one of the greatest risks to wildlife management there is," he said.
The pigs eat a wide variety of native plants and bird eggs. They compete with other animals for food. The damage done to plant and animal species won't be known for years, he said.
"I've been a biologist for 30 years in Arkansas and have seen a lot of species, and I've not seen an animal as destructive as this," Hoy said.
The agencies involved in the initiative believed trapping would be the best option, using fenced pens with a falling trap door as an entrance. The trap door is triggered by a tripwire, and the pen is baited with feed grains. The agencies encouraged farmers and other landowners to use such traps.
"We were wrong," Hoy said. "What we learned is that one of the first four or five pigs would hit the tripwire, leaving the rest outside. Pigs are smart. Once they see a trap work, the ones who are still out go 'Whoa, I'm not going in one of these again.'"
Feral pigs run in groups of a dozen or more. One sow can have two litters a year with an average of six to eight piglets a litter. A sow 8 months old has reached breeding age. Catching a fraction of a group of pigs, known as a "sounder," barely slows the population growth, Hoy said.
"Once a piglet has grown to eight pounds, there's no natural predator for it," Hoy said. "They can go anywhere and eat anything."
About 3.8 million feral pigs are in the United States, the Agriculture Department estimates. They are responsible for $1.5 billion in damage a year.
Hoy estimates the state would have to trap 140,000 feral pigs a year just to keep Arkansas' population from growing. All but two of the state's counties, both in eastern Arkansas, have some wild pigs, according to a map he showed the committees.
One promising alternative uses a motion detector, a digital camera and an application that can be run from a mobile phone, Hoy said. Someone with the application will receive an alert when an animal enters the pen. He can then watch on the camera until all the pigs in the group are in the pen, then release the trap remotely. Hoy used such a trap to catch all of a group of 26 pigs, but it took three months before the wary animals approached and all entered the trap.
The agencies encouraged intensive hunts in some areas using dogs, even offering bounties for pigs. They found "very intensive" hunts would get a maximum of 20 percent of the animals.
"If you come up on a group you might get two or three," Hoy said. "The rest will scatter."
Only one kill out of a group is more likely, said Allen Myers of Beebe, part owner of Cuz and Cuz Wild Boar Ranch, a 200-acre property where hunts are organized and encouraged. Myers' first reaction when called for an interview on Thursday's discussion was to express frustration that the committee brought up the issue without notifying hunters about the topic.
"We've been battling with the state Game and Fish Commission all this week and have another meeting scheduled in October about them wanting to regulate us out of business, and we didn't even know about this one," Myers said of Thursday's discussion.
"We account for 160 to 200 hogs a year on our ranch, and there are two others who have more than that. We're at least helping in what they want to do, and they won't even tell us when they're having a meeting."
Metro on 09/20/2015