Information about Wild Hog devistation in Texas

[pickles]

Hey pals,

A young lady I know is currently writing a paper about the devistation that feral hogs cause in Texas. Economic and enviromental. Her and I have surfed the web and found a few articles but we really haven't found anything well studied with hard facts. Do any of you fine people know off the tops of your head where would be a good place to find this information?

Thank you,
Pickles

[NAVY CHIEF]

maybe tpwd! or national geographic did a big study a year or so ago........called pig bomb

[NAVY CHIEF]

sorry, it was not national geo but discovery channel, google (pig bomb)

[txnduckhntr]

contact a county agent..they have tons of info on feral hogs and damage, as well as control methods

[ZZ Pops]

I would start here:

http://feralhogs.tamu.edu/2011/05/agrilife-today-busting-feral-hog-myths/

[Kevin]

Try this google search...

Click here

[Kiwifan]

Is she a college student or have access to a university library? EBSCOhost, BioOne, and other online databases have a ton of research on the subject, but it's not free unless you have a college login.

[Patton]

This is gonna be a long post.. maybe should have been a PM, but I thought others might find it useful at some point. We had to write a paper about something we strongly believed in, I strongly believe that pigs are destroying land so I wrote about it
Enjoy

Wild Pig Destruction
Pigs, scientifically known as Sus Scrofa, are not native to the Western Hemisphere, and since their time being here, have caused an excessive amount of damage. Their introduction to this part of the world dates back to Europeans voyaging to Caribbean Islands where they brought domestic pigs from the Canary Islands. Eventually, through trade, pigs made their way to the mainland where they have quickly multiplied by the millions and have become a major issue amongst landowners and agricultural industries. Through their quick reproduction and eating habits, wild hogs have become an invasive species whose management and suppression needs to be addressed on a national scale.
Swine are omnivores, meaning that they can eat both animal and plant matter. When a herd of wild pigs decides it is time to eat, their first menu choice is to find a patch of soft earth and begin digging in search of tree roots, grubs, acorns and practically anything else other than mud. When pigs dig and overturn land with their snouts like this, it is called rooting. In many cases, hogs will often return to an area several consecutive days or nights to root and eat; this takes quite a toll on the land. When the fresh wet dirt is dug up, it hardens over the next few hours and turns into a tightly packed, hardened dirt clod. When this happens in agricultural fields, farmers must go through a much longer and time-consuming route in order to be able to prepare and plant the field without damaging their plow. On many occasions, there is not time to fix the land, and as a result that plot can no longer be used to grow crops. Oklahoma wildlife biologist Michael Waddell notes, in many cases native plant species do not return to areas where pigs have caused damage to land (Waddell). The manager of the Australian Animal Control, Linton Staples, writes that there is annual average of over $100 million dollars of damage done to the agricultural industry in the country by wild hogs (Staples). Damage done by feral pigs includes, but is not limited to, crop and pasture damage, disease spread, competition with livestock, erosion, and the huge costs of control. In some cases where food and browse is not available, pigs have been known to kill and eat young or injured live-stock such as cattle, sheep, or goats.
Pigs are animals that are prone to overheating, and as a result they prefer to be close to water and create wallows where they can stay cool. A wallow is an area, usually next to a body of water such as a creek or river, where a group of swine has dug deep enough to reach water and essentially create a mud pit. As a result of all the time spent there, feces often enter and contaminate the area or source of water and throw off the finely balanced ecosystem. Because all animals need water and are likely to come into contact with pigs or wallowed areas, they are susceptible to stepping into the feces or bitten by bugs previously on pigs, such as ticks or fleas, that may carry diseases. As conservationist John Markham writes in an online blog, although disease is nature’s way of keeping populations balanced and in check, feral hogs can spread sickness to domestic livestock herds that are raised for human consumption (Markham). Rooted areas and wallows often lead to soil erosion, a loss of native plants and farmland, and the destruction of the habitat of native wildlife.
The most shocking issue involving wild hogs is the rapidness at which they can spread and multiply. According to Kevin Ryer, the founder of the organization Texas Boars, a sow, also known as a female pig, can have up to three litters in the period of fourteen months. Each litter can have anywhere from six to ten piglets, all that can reproduce near the ages of six months. In the period of just five years, one pig can be responsible for procreating over one thousand other hogs. This statistic is quite appalling, considering that there are over two million feral hogs that populate the state of Texas alone (Ryer).
Although hogs may be enjoyable to hunt, it is not possible for landowners to Bar-B-Que their way out the feral hog problem that is becoming more prominent each year. Wild boars cause harm to many people’s land, the agricultural industry, and the environment as a whole. More programs are needed to be put into place in order to control and eradicate the invasive species that is drastically changing the habitat in which it lives. Hunting, trapping and fencing are all ways that should be established in order to deal with the problem.





Works Cited
Butler, Rhett. Hogs begin rooting. 2010. TPBeachPost.com. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. http://www.tcoasttalk.com/2010/08/05...od/feral_hogs/
Markham, John. "Wild Hogs In Texas." Green Cupboards.com. N.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.
Ryer, Kevin. "Facts about Feral Hogs." Texasboars.com. N.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
Staples, Linton. "The Booming Swine." Animalcontrol.com. N.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
Waddell, Michael. "The Feral Hog in Oklahoma: Biological Characteristics.” Noble.org. N.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.

[Patton]

I should probably note I'm pretty sure I wrote this a few hours before class and the names I cited are probably made up... No sure though