Interesting reading!

Likewise a good read on feral hogs... http://www.berrymaninstitute.org/pdf/managing-feral-pigs.pdf

Thanks, Yellowhammer.

Okay so I have some questions and a couple comments.

The birthrate per year is 18-20%
The number of hogs killed by hunting is 8-50% 24% being average

Yet the study said you can not control with hunting alone??

They said you have to kill 60-70% to control??

I am not a math genius but if they only increase by 20% and hunters can kill 24% would the not keep the population in check.

So who paid for this study it seem that every time you read about the hog population in Texas the say there is a problem. They cause so much damage and hunting alone can not solve it (numbers say different in my opinion) yet you have to pay to hunt them. Whats the deal.

The annual GROWTH is 20%, that's including hunting etc. Not birth rate. So with everything staying the same, the population will double every 5 years.

According to the study a sow drops 1.6 litters per year for around 10 baby pigs. Assuming 2 million of the 4-5 million are female of breeding age... and really nature favors females especially in herd animals so more than 50% of the population will be breeding and dropping babies.

To keep a population in check you would have to eliminate more than half of the females, and before they drop babies. Otherwise the existing females are dropping more potential breeding females than hunting etc removes from the breeding pool.

The fun part, even as the population grows and hunter success improves due to more targets, the % of population removed by hunting decreases. There's only so many hunters, and so many pigs those hunters can take. Unless you have a matching number of hunters as breeding females who take a matching number of pigs as will be born every year, the population will grow.

They're a revenue source for many operations now. They don't want to "eradicate" them. It wouldn't be that difficult to kill a great majority of the hog population if they were really committed and wanted to.

Spoken like someone who has never tried hunting them or erradicating them.

In Texas they can be hunted 24/7/365 anything goes, trapped, dogged, arial gunned, you name it. And they still can't get rid of them.

If deer were anywhere near as nocturnal as hogs, people would give up trying to hunt them.

I get hundreds of hog pictures on my game cameras each year and 90% of those are at night.

Do you think the heat and dry conditions are going to affect the population much this year? I have seen some sign of stress in quite a few hogs (and deer for that matter) this summer and have found three dead hogs around lakes in the last couple of weeks...

I'm sure there will be some added stress. I have not personally seen any poor or dying deer. Trees are something else all together.

We actually saw more deer and possiblly more fawns on our counts this year. If it persists through the winter, it is going to get rough.

Let me rephrase that,it may not be easy, but the population could be reduced significantly if everyone had the same goal. A Google search for Texas Hog Hunting came back with 617,000 results and the first 5 pages were loaded with commercial hunting operations offering guided hunts. Not everyone is 100% committed to eliminating them.

A large number of those hunting operations are probably under high fence, and you are right, they do not want to eliminate them.

Texas is big state though and way more people who would like to be rid of them. Granted they are a fun recreational opportunity, but if it wasn't for the non-residents who come in to pay those prices, they would't be worth nearly as much. Most residents have plenty of opportunity to shoot them for free unless they are city folks.

Gotcha, I understand, that's what's keeping me from coming down to hunt them, I wouldn't pay to hunt rats either.
I live in a rural area and know what you mean, if I want to hunt a hog I'll go turn one out of buddies confinement and shoot him in the head, cheaper and he's been castrated.
Sounds like a lot of people have other things to worry about right now anyway, like their houses and possesions burning up. Hope you get some rain.

If you are ever down my way, I will try and get you on a hog. They are definately hard to hunt free range, but they are there. Sometimes they are harder than others.

Exact same story here on my land in Florida and I hunt them 24/7/365 too!