Law aims to limit wild hog population
Published: Monday, September 13, 2010 at 11:17 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, September 13, 2010 at 11:18 a.m.
HOUMA — A new state law aims to stem the growing feral hog population by holding domestic hog owners accountable when their animals roam around.
Feral hogs, which have lost their domestic traits while free in the wild, pose threats to other animal populations, such as deer, have been known to damage land and assist in the spread of disease.
In recent years, wild hogs have been spotted more frequently in Lafourche and Terrebonne and have been known to cause damage to sugar cane and other vegetation. This year, they appear fewer in numbers than years past.
This new law, which went into effect Aug. 15, is expected to improve efforts to control feral-hog populations, reduce the potential of disease transfer between feral and domestic hogs and improve water quality in streams or rivers if feral hogs were present, said Michael Kaller, the LSU Agriculture Center’s wildlife and fisheries specialist.
“Anything that reduces the number of feral hogs on the landscape, such as eliminating the recruitment of feral hogs from lost free-range hogs, should reduce the impacts of feral hogs on water quality,” he wrote via e-mail.
Kaller’s expectations are based on surveys filled out by landowners, disease monitoring done by state and federal agencies and his own testing of feral hogs’ effects on water quality.
Kaller referenced a study that revealed only 7 percent of landowners blamed free ranging by neighboring landowners’ animals that caused them property or land damage.
“Hogs are social animals, and free-range hogs are attracted to feral hogs and vice versa,” he wrote. “Consequently, diseased feral hogs could easily transmit their illness to free-range hogs, which could then transmit disease into domestic herds.”
Representatives of the LSU Agricultural Center did not specify how much hog owners would be penalized for violating the new law.
Feral hogs have run roughshod over Schriever sugar-cane farmer Danny Naquin’s land off La. 311 for the past 14 years. But this year is different.
“They disappeared,” he said. “I don’t know if they all caught diseases and died or just picked up and left.”
Either way, he added, their move has been a welcome surprise.
Phone calls to LSU Agricultural Center forestry agent Ricky Kilpatrick were not returned Friday.
Staff Writer Raymond Legendre can be reached at 448-7617 or email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @cometcrime.
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