In an effort to eradicate hogs, the Game and Fish Commission has taken a new approach to an old problem and adopted rules against hunting feral hogs on the wildlife management areas it controls.
Those rules, enacted on some WMAs during the 2014-15 hunting season, have now spread to include nearly all Commission WMAs in the state.
Don’t shoot? It’s difficult to understand why the Commission won’t allow hunters to harvest hogs on property it controls. That’s because there’s another, perhaps better, way to fight the problem.
For decades, hunters could harvest feral hogs during any open season with weapons legal for that season on wildlife management areas. Coyote season hunters could be afield nine months of the year with high-powered rifles to pursue feral hogs. Despite the rules, feral hog populations continued to rise.
Complete removal is the key to hog eradication. Pigs are so prolific that unless 70 percent or more of a population is removed, pigs that remain will repopulate the area within a year.
“Hunters were not able to harvest enough hogs to keep the population in check. The idea of a near year-round hunting season on public land may have caused some hunters to dump hogs on new areas to hunt them later,” according to Brad Carner, Wildlife Management Division chief. “Trapping has shown to be much more effective at removing hogs completely from a property.”
Biologists have switched tactics to setting large corral traps on WMAs and areas with large hog problems.
Instead of trying to catch or shoot one or two pigs and scattering the rest of the pigs on the area, biologists are baiting entire family groups of pigs into the traps and eradicating dozens at a time.
“We have removed 6,802 hogs on our areas since 2013 through this new trapping method,” said J.P. Fairhead, feral hog program coordinator. “But our trapping efforts are almost nothing when the pigs are constantly disturbed by people hunting them. We need the pigs to be relaxed before they become susceptible in the large groups we need to make a dent in the population.”
Some WMAs owned by other agencies and cooperatively managed by the AGFC for hunting, still allow hunters to take a hog if it crosses their path during a firearms deer, bear or elk season, because manpower for trapping in those areas can be limited.
“We have tried to gradually phase hunters into the new philosophy of not shooting hogs on our WMAs,” said Jeff Crow, AGFC director.
“During the first year, many areas owned by the Army Corps of Engineers maintained the old standard of allowing hunting during any open season, but they have also adopted the method of only allowing harvest during firearms deer, bear or elk seasons,” he said. “The hope is that the continued limitation of hog hunting on public lands will prevent more illegal dumping of hogs on public land for sport.”
Regulations concerning hog hunting on individual wildlife management areas were changed during the annual regulations cycle in May. However, regulations during that time frame were focused on the discovery of chronic wasting disease in Arkansas and on changes to mechanical decoy regulations and access times on WMAs for waterfowl season.
Crow says the new hog rules may be difficult to interpret, but staff continues working to educate hunters.
“We understand this is a new way of thinking goes against what we’ve had in place for decades. Our wildlife officers have been asked to show discretion in issuing warnings or citations about hog hunting on these WMAs,” Crow said. “But we have seen enough positive results from the trapping efforts when the pigs are not spooked by hunters to continue this new course of action to eliminate hogs currently on our property and remove the incentive for hunters to dump more on public land in the future.”
For more information on feral hog regulations, click here.