By: Mark Tyson,
Extension Associate, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Photos By: Linda
Tschirhart-Hejl and Mark Tyson
Feral hogs are becoming more and more common in urban areas
of Texas. The presence of feral hogs in an area is often announced by rooting
damage. Rooting is a common feeding behavior of feral hogs; they use their nose
to dig in the soil in search of underground food items such as roots, insects
or mast. Meeting their daily food intake needs is a primary concern of feral
hogs, and urban areas offer concentrated food sources in many cases. Couple a
lushly landscaped yard with nearby water and a stand of brush or thick trees
within a half mile and you have a perfect storm for urban feral hog feeding
incursions.
(Water + Trees = Daytime cover for urban feral hogs)
I recently visited with an urban property owner who had
extensive rooting damage in their yard, particularly under their oak trees. The
individual was rather upset that the feral hogs only hit their yard and left
the surrounding neighbors alone completely. After walking around the entire
yard and observing the damaged areas I noticed a pattern, the only areas hit
were those that had live oak trees. No other surrounding neighbor had live oaks
in their yard. The feral hogs were actually going after leftover acorns from
the previous year’s bumper crop.
(Feral hog rooting damage under oak trees)
If you think the feral hogs are picking on you next time
they only root up your yard, take a closer look around. More often than not you
can associate the rooting damage with a particular food resource. Feral hogs
are very keen at finding new highly nutritious foods on the landscape and your
yard just may be that place. The photo below demonstrates this point, in this
particular case the feral hogs were going after some type of underground bulb.
You will see that they consumed the bulb and left the outer shell behind. Once the bulbs were no longer growing on the site the feral hogs moved on to another area to feed. This type of feeding behavior can be one reason why feral hog damage may only occur seasonally in some areas.
(Outer shells of bulbs consumed by feral hogs)
So now that you know the “why” I would guess you are
wondering what can be done about urban feral hogs? Take a few minutes to read Urban
Feral Hogs: Concern, Challenges and Control it will give you some ideas on
how you can address the problem.
The hyper-linked resource document below will provide you with quick access to many of our online feral hog resources including publications, fact sheets and videos.
The hyper-linked resource document below will provide you with quick access to many of our online feral hog resources including publications, fact sheets and videos.
For free educational
programming or technical assistance with feral hogs please contact us:
Mark Tyson,
South and Southeast Texas, 979-845-4698, mark.tyson@ag.tamu.edu
Dan Gaskins,
Central and North Central Texas, 254-248-0532, dan.gaskins@tamu.edu
Our services
are provided free of charge through a Clean Water Act 319(h) non-point sources
grant from the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency