Feral hogs are apparently a bigger nuisance in the South than they are in the far West.<\/p>\n
In Arkansas, feral hogs are almost an epidemic. Worse, they exist in somewhat of a netherworld in which they have no real status. They are not wildlife, so the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission doesn’t manage them with a designated pig season. Pigs actually have greater status as livestock, which prevents the Game and Fish Commission from managing pigs as aggressively as it would like.<\/p>\n
The Game and Fish Commission traps feral pigs intensively on state-owned wildlife management areas. The commission will help private landowners trap and remove pigs from private land by request, but otherwise we have an open season on pigs. Hunting pigs on public land is heavily regulated, but on private land you can shoot them all year long.<\/p>\n
Because hunters are not required to tag or check pigs, there is no way of knowing how many pigs hunters kill every year. Ryan Farney, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission biologist who serves on the state Feral Hog Eradication Task Force, said that the AGFC removed 1,500 pigs from the landscape in 2025.<\/p>\n
Farney said that he can’t say if the state is winning the war against feral pigs statewide, but he said he believes the commission is winning on wildlife management areas. Hogs have been historically present on 27 wildlife management areas, Farney said.<\/p>\n
“As time has gone on, most WMAs are stable,” Farney said. “I can say with confidence, from our (area) managers, in general, that feral hog populations are decreasing.”<\/p>\n
At Seven Devils, Choctaw and Cutoff Creek WMAs, the commission removed more than 100 pigs in several areas. It removed about 200 pigs from Lester Sitzes Bois d’Arc WMA in two years, 236 pigs from Sylamore WMA and 140 pigs from Petit Jean River WMA. State and federal grants funded these efforts.<\/p>\n
“Over one-thousand pigs were removed without spending a single AGFC dime,” Farney said. “All of the landowners (we worked with) saw a noticeable difference.”<\/p>\n
In California, where I hunted pigs earlier in the month, feral pigs are treated like game. To hunt pigs, even on private land, you must buy a feral pig permit for about $99. The California Wildlife and Fish Department averages about $1 million annually from the permits, ranging between $900,000 and $1.08 million. However, pigs do not seem to be as rapacious or as destructive in the West as they are here.<\/p>\n
An obvious question is why the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission doesn’t cash in by requiring pig hunting permits. Their livestock status prevents that. Because pigs are not native wildlife in Arkansas, they are technically assumed to be owned by somebody. Therefore, they are considered to be private property.<\/p>\n
Pigs have not spread across Arkansas on their own. They spread so rapidly because pig hunters — pig hunting guides to be precise — translocated them in the 1980s and 1990s as part of an emerging economic market. The Game and Fish Commission curtailed much of that activity by enacting restrictions on hunting pigs on WMAs, where much of the translocation efforts occurred.<\/p>\n
I killed a massive boar during a controlled muzzleloader deer hunt many years ago on Moro Big Pine WMA. It had been neutered and had a notched ear, indicating that it was a privately owned pig that was released.<\/p>\n
California requires non-lead ammunition for all hunting. My pig hunt was an excellent opportunity to collect field observations about the efficacy of non-lead ammo on tough, hard-bodied animals. I used a rifle chambered in 7mm-08. Three hunters used rifles in 308 Winchester. One used a 30-06. These are medium-bore cartridges that are proven against all big game in the Lower 48, but I was not impressed at all with their performance on pigs using all-copper bullets. Of the four pigs I killed, only one took one shot, and that was to the head. The last pig that my group killed was a boar that required five shots. Three would have been killing shots with lead bullets. The killing shot was to the head at point blank range.<\/p>\n
Another pig that charged its assailants required three shots. My group tag-teamed one pig at the far end of a field. We know we hit it at least five times. Each shot merely slowed it down before we could run it down and finish the job.<\/p>\n
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