MAYFLOWER, Ark. (KATV) \u2014 Feral hogs are causing serious damage across Arkansas, and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) said the population is only growing. The invasive species has now spread into nearly every part of the state, creating major challenges for landowners and wildlife managers.<\/p>\n
Ryan Farney, AGFC’s feral hog program coordinator, said the situation has become widespread. “Yeah, it’s fairly serious. We have hogs in just about every county of the state.”<\/p>\n
The animals tear up natural habitats as they search for food, leaving behind costly and sometimes irreversible damage.<\/p>\n
“They dig up large holes in fields or streams or whatever it may be. And they also compete for our natural resources, which drives off the native wildlife.”<\/p>\n
With no natural predators, feral hogs reproduce rapidly and much faster than native species.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there’s not a human component there to limit their populations, then they will experience a population explosion. They reproduce extremely fast, not anything like a native animal would.\u201d<\/p>\n
Year-round trapping remains AGFC\u2019s primary tool for removing hogs, but Farney said aerial operations, using helicopters to locate and eliminate hogs, play a critical role too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aerial culling operations are extremely important because one, they allow us to get into areas that are not easily accessible to traps, and they can remove a lot of pigs in a short amount of time with those operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some hunters have expressed interest in helping reduce hog numbers, but Farney said recreational hunting doesn\u2019t make much of a dent in the population.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey essentially have no impact on a population as a whole, right? So, I mean, the way that we approach it is, it’s not an opportunity for recreation. It’s a mission to eradicate populations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Petit Jean River Wildlife Management Area will be closed Monday and Tuesday due to aerial flights in the area.<\/p>\n
AGFC said controlling feral hogs is a long-term effort, and more removal operations are planned in the months ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MAYFLOWER, Ark. (KATV) \u2014 Feral hogs are causing serious damage across Arkansas, and the Arkansas Game and Fish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-327939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}