Is Texas Losing the War Against the Wild Hog Population?

Wild hogs have been a problem in Texas for years and they aren’t going away anytime soon. They run off other wildlife, tear up good soil, terrorize locals, and when in the roads they can cause terrible car accidents. A wild hog is able to survive in harsh climate conditions and so far the best way to reduce the population is to eradicate as many as possible.

There are no bag limits in Texas when it comes to hogs. Some hunters have resorted to shooting the hogs from helicopters. These pigs, however, are intelligent. They stay evasive and are able to escape traps and any attempts at killing them. They travel in groups and can run upwards of 25 miles an hour. Man is the only natural predators to these species. Hunters, however, have been training their dogs, setting traps, and testing poisons to help slow down these destructive and invasive creatures, but it hasn’t been enough.

Photos: envato elements

Hogs can have three litters of more than six piglets a year and each one can live up to eight years. This means if they dwindle, they can renew to full herds within three years. They survive off mostly anything by tearing through fields, destroying farmland, eating livestock food, and preying on small animals. Hogs also carry many diseases such as Swine brucellosis, as well as infections and parasites.

Any success Texas has had on lowering the wild hog population has been short-term.  According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) the wild hogs have increased in Texas more than ten times than when they started trapping and killing them in 1982. Wildlife managers and biologists claim that to maintain current population levels, hunters will have to kill 70 percent of the wild hogs state-wide. Texas is testing poisons but the state has not yet found one that doesn’t also hurt other wildlife. This hog problem has turned into a war and so far, Texas is losing.