The Brief
Georgia has launched a pilot program to combat invasive wild pigs, offering landowners a chance to win valuable traps for removing hogs.
Wild pigs cause significant financial damage to Georgia farmers, with losses estimated at $150 million annually statewide.
The program includes quarterly drawings for traps, aiming to incentivize landowners to participate in controlling the hog population.
ATLANTA - Georgia has launched a new effort to stop invasive wild pigs from wrecking havoc on farm land and wildlife habitat throughout the state.
It comes as a University of Georgia study found that those hogs cost farmers here a lot of cash.
Wild hogs destroying crops
What we know
Wild hogs in Georgia have not slowed down and neither are the losses they cause.
"We are seeing wild pigs as more and more of an issue," said Justine Smith.
Smith is a doctoral student at the University of Georgia. She has focused a lot of her research on wild pigs. She is the lead author of a new study which found that the animals destroy thousands of dollars of crops each year by uprooting seeds, trampling plants and sometimes chewing through parts of farm equipment.
Smith’s study focused on three landowners in southwest Georgia. She estimates they lose more than $100,000 each year, but the pig problem affects more than just three farmers.
According to the UGA Extension in 2020, hogs do an estimated $150-million in damage each year statewide.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources says wild pigs are one of its most problematic species when it comes to damage, but they want to change that with a new pilot program launched this month.
It allows landowners that kill hogs on their property the opportunity to win a free valuable trap to remove even more hogs.
These pigs are not native to Georgia, which is why they are such a big problem.
Georgia DNR's pilot program for wild hogs
What they're saying
"In the grand scheme of things, especially for these farmers, any money lost is a lot of time and effort put into planting these crops," Smith said.
Georgia DNR says the problem is holding steady, but they would like to see the numbers drop.
"The problem with feral hogs is we don't have a lot of good information because because they're considered a pest, we don't have reporting requirements," said Charlie Killmaster, the deer and feral hog biologist at Georgia DNR.
For Georgia DNR, they hope the pilot program pushes more people to take part in removing the problem pigs.
"We want to, at the same time, reward efforts for the people that are doing control, but also reward them in a way that's going to make them more effective in the future," Killmaster said.
Hog Down Awards
What you can do
DNR will conduct drawings from eligible entries. Five (5) winners will be randomly selected each quarter. Each winner will be awarded a whole-sounder feral hog trap valued at approximately $3,500. Individuals can only win one trap each quarter.
The program period will run from July 1 – June 30 each year. Four quarterly drawings will occur during the program period:
1st week of October covering entries from July 1 - September 30
1st week of January covering entries from October 1 – December 31
1st week of April covering entries from January 1 – March 31
1st week of July covering entries from April 1 – June 30
If you’re interested in learning more about the new ‘Hog Down Awards Program’, click here: https://georgiawildlife.com/HogDownAwardsProgram
The Source
FOX 5's Tyler Fingert spoke with Justine Smith, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, and Charlie Killmaster, the deer and feral hog biologist at the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
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