Texas A&M AgriLife publication focuses on urban, suburban feral hog management

Experts with the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, NRI, are working to connect Texans with the resources and expertise necessary to address the growing challenge of feral hog management across the state’s rapidly changing landscape.

“As metropolitan areas continue to push into what were once rural working lands, feral hog encounters and their incursions into developed areas will only continue to increase,” said Jay Long, project coordinator for the NRI Wild Pig Management Program.

Long and others with NRI recently published a fact sheet on Managing Feral Pigs on Small Acreage Properties and Metropolitan Areas, specifically geared toward helping landowners and community leaders navigate challenges and find solutions for feral hog management across smaller parcels and urbanized landscapes. 

Changing land trends see rural pest shift to urban intruder

Texas is home to eight of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. and has seen its population grow from 19 million to 29 million over the past 20 years, with no signs of slowing down.

Over the past decade, feral hogs emerged as a concern along the suburban boundaries of cities like Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.

With an estimated population of 2.6 million feral hogs, control of this invasive species has been a challenge across the state’s rural and agricultural landscapes. The management limitations that accompany suburban and metropolitan properties make controlling feral hogs or limiting their damage even more difficult.

Feral hogs are no longer strictly a “rural issue,” Long said.

“With the change in population and land use, we’re seeing more individuals who have little to no experience with feral hogs, as well as limitations to management practices we can employ due to city and county codes or homeowners association rules,” Long said. “We’re focused on an adaptive, science-backed approach that incorporates landowners and municipalities to meet localized challenges.”

A threat to property, natural resources and community health

Property damage is not the only threat posed by feral hogs. They can damage important ecological resources like streams and negatively impact community well-being by destroying green spaces and spreading diseases and parasites transmissible to humans and domestic pets.

Suburban residents like John Johnson, DVM, ’75, who lives near San Antonio, are utilizing these management resources and engaging with NRI experts like Long.

Johnson is a founding member of his neighborhood’s wildlife management committee. He said the NRI and its Wild Pig Management Program have been key resources for the committee’s efforts to mitigate the impacts of feral hogs in his neighborhood.

Over the last year and a half, he and his neighbors have developed a close working relationship with NRI experts who have provided the committee with in-person educational presentations, science-backed recommendations, management resources and more.

Helping landowners and municipalities build a management toolkit

Implementing feral hog management across the state is a multiagency effort, with each party playing a specialized role. But Long said the program’s success depends on Texas property owners like Johnson and his neighbors.

As a part of Texas A&M AgriLife, NRI supports research and extension, engaging in ongoing scientific studies while working directly with Texans to share this knowledge and advance resource stewardship.

“Our goal is to educate landowners while sharing the research and services available to help them manage feral hogs and the damage they cause across the landscape,” Long said. “We teach and demonstrate the best control methods, offer tips from our experts’ years of experience and best available science, and share what might be most effective for their particular property or lifestyle.”

Long works closely with Johnson and other communities to build an educational foundation and familiarize residents and municipal leadership with diverse management options ranging from trapping to toxicants.

“Involvement from both community members and municipal governments is key to building a diverse toolbox of management options, including adapting existing policies to facilitate actions such as trapping and removal,” Long said. “It’s not an easy task, but if we can bring Texans together to share resources, engage with community leaders and play an active role in feral hog management, we can make progress in mitigating feral hog damage across our evolving state.”