Porkpocalypse: Wild Swine Spread Leads to Mass Destruction

Space invaders, zombies, artificial intelligence taking over society…sure, we’re fascinated by stories of end-times destruction. Pop culture likes to imagine scenarios of threats to everyday life. The thing is, the threat to our native ecosystem is already here and it’s wreaking hog havoc on Alabama. It may sound dramatic, but when you consider the impact from a non-native species invading agricultural land, you’ve got a horror story ripe for the dime-store novel.

Agricultural Impacts

Alabama agriculture suffers from the presence of feral hogs. Hogs can easily decimate large portions and sometimes entire crop fields. Feral hogs are attracted to many different crops, such as corn, cotton, peanuts, and soybeans. No crop is safe from their appetite at any stage of growth. They root newly planted seeds from the soil, and strip tender sprouts. Hogs trample mature crop growth and other varieties of crops such as hay and newly sprouted pine trees. Depending on the severity of the damage done, replanting the entire field is often required. Their rooting behaviors cause deep ruts in fields that can damage farm equipment. These ruts cost both time and money to fill, let alone the cost of repairs to damaged equipment all at the farmer’s expense. Crop land that is damaged by hogs can force farmers to not harvest the crop in order to avoid damage to their equipment, sequentially losing the entire crop yield. Livestock farmers aren’t exempt from the damages caused by feral hogs either. Feral hogs are opportunistic omnivores, occasionally preying on newborn calves, lambs, or other livestock they can eat. Additionally, swine can carry up to 45 different diseases and parasites that they can easily transmit to livestock, ultimately impacting production.

Photo: Feral swine tusks.

Even if you aren’t a farmer, the destruction trickles down eventually affecting you. The devastation to our agriculture industry works its way down supply lines. Significant disruption eventually reaches consumers. If your producers are heavily impacted, that’s going to show up in the availability and cost of the product. And make no mistake, your producers are being heavily impacted.

Wild Hog Woes

Nationwide, hogs cause roughly $1.5 billion in damage each year. In Alabama alone, a soft estimate of $45 million worth of damage takes place a year, but because of lack of studies, that number could increase to reflect numbers closer to what studies have shown in the states immediately surrounding Alabama. International cooperative efforts have led to new methods of hog management that are still working through FDA certification. For more information on hog management and the impact of wild hogs on agriculture please see A Landowner’s Guide for Wild Pig Management.

Photo: Damage caused by feral swine to a newly sprouted field.

Alabama has been selected to be a part of a national pilot program to assist farmers with the control and eradication of feral hogs. Alabama Soil and Water Conservation Committee(ALSWCC) has been awarded a $1.5 million grant from USDA. ALSWCC has created the Alabama Feral Swine Control Program. The program will provide free professional USDA trappers to perform feral hog trapping and removal, as well as 70% rebates on eligible hog trap purchases to landowners in the programs area. This program includes an agricultural damage survey by Auburn University’s graduate student William Green. This survey will bring light to the understated agricultural damages feral hogs cause in Alabama. To see if you qualify to participate in this program, check out the Alabama Feral Swine Control Program home page.