Anything but BOAR-ing: Central Texas Feral Hog Task Force Hosts Webinar

The Central Texas Feral Hog Task Force hosted the 2021 Feral Hog Webinar on Thursday to present and discuss updates regarding Hays County’s program. 

Nick Dornack, Director of Watershed Services at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, delivered an introduction that included what has taken place regarding the bounty program, aerial control, traps and funding. 

“It was a pretty light program in Hays County because we, we had just a small amount of funding to keep the program basically going this year,” Dornack said. 

While Hays County hasn’t had a bounty program in a few years, Dornack mentioned that he has been working with Commissioner Mike Jones to implement a program again soon.

“I believe we’re going to try and roll it out again probably late this year,” Dornack said. “To get started with that, we’ve applied for funding to cover about 500 pigs in the bounty program.” 

Dr. Christina Lopez, Watershed Coordinator for Plum Creek Watershed Partnership, also gave updates surrounding the Plum Creek stream, which begins in Kyle and flows through Caldwell County. 

The purpose of the Plum Creek Watershed Partnership is to restore the health of the creek. This goal has met challenges due to bacteria. 

“In 2018, a bacterial source tracking study identified non-avian wildlife as the most dominant form of E. coli,” Lopez said. “We believe this to be feral hogs.” 

Because of this, Plum Creek Watershed will be working closely with the Central Texas Feral Hog Task Force to help with the issue. 

Amanda Gobeli, Project Coordinator for the Texas A&M University National Resources Institute served as a guest speaker and gave a presentation about the wild pig problem in Texas. 

Wild pigs first came to the United States after they were intentionally brought from Europe in the 1500s. They served as domestic, livestock animals that early settlers would use as food sources. Later on, Eurasian or “Russian” boars were brought to the U.S. in the late 1890s for hunting purposes. 

“Strictly speaking, a feral hog is a wild pig of domestic origin,” Gobeli said. 

Over time, many would escape into the wild and would become what we know today as wild hogs. 

Wild pigs impact many aspects within the county such as water quality and wildlife. They are known to cause fecal coliform pollution within bodies of water and disease transmission. 

As of 2012, there were 2.6 million feral hogs in Texas. Currently, there are wild pigs in every single one of our 254 counties in Texas, with the exception of  El Paso County.

“We just know that our state has a lot of pigs, and in fact, it has more than any other state in the nation,” Gobeli said. “We’re at the point now that to keep the population stable, we need to remove between 50 and 70% of it every single year.” 

At the end of the presentation, those in attendance were able to ask questions regarding the feral hog population in Hays County. 

To rewatch the webinar or for more information, visit feralhogtaskforce.com/ or wildpigs.nri.tamu.edu/. For additional questions, email feralhog@txst.edu. 

If there is any known damage that has been caused by wild hogs in the Hays County area, residents are encouraged to fill out this survey, https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSddrIZb0RjLEmO1LEV3swRfrJbI-ARi...