Controlling Feral Hogs? Not In The Near Future

Dr. Glen Gentry at the Idlewild Research Station is using funding from the Louisiana Soybean, Grain Research and Promotion Board, to find ways of controlling feral swine. But he points out a delivery system is still a way off.

“The problem we’re running into now is when we disburse the bait the pigs that are higher up the social dominance, dominate the bait. We’re going to have to figure out a way to spread the bait on the ground in a larger area to give more pigs access,” said Gentry.

Gentry points out the animals average about six piglets per litter and they can have about a litter and a half each year.

“So when you sit down and you calculate how many pigs a sow can have, you go out about 48 months, that one sow can add hundreds of pigs to the landscape. Go out 72 months and its into the thousands.”

Some researchers have worked out the numbers and “just to hold pigs where they are right now, we would have to remove 70% of that population just to keep the whole thing steady.”