Wild Pig Management: Impact of White and Filtered Light on Wild Pig Behaviors

By Mark Tyson, M.S. 

In many areas wild pigs exhibit nocturnal behaviors due to environmental factors or in response to human pressure. Often land managers feel helpless when trying to contend with this behavior as observing elusive wild pigs at night can be quite a challenge if shooting is the control method employed. Technology has provided a solution to this challenge in the form of night vision and thermal imagery optics. Yet this technology can be quite expensive and beyond financial justification for many land managers.

(Wild pigs photographed at a bait site with a standard flash trail camera)

With some prior planning and strategy, affordable white light sources such as spotlights and solar powered walkway lighting devices can be used to “shed a little light” on wild pigs at night.  The strategy portion mentioned above primarily consists of conditioning the wild pigs to the lights with a little positive reinforcement. This can be accomplished by simply placing a trail camera with a standard flash on a pile of shelled corn. This accomplishes both habituation to light and monitoring wild pig response in one easy step.

Researchers in France used a similar technique and found the use of white and filtered light to be successful in accomplishing the nighttime capture of wild pigs.  A 50 or 100 watt spotlight equipped with a yellow filter was initially used to monitor wild pigs at a trap site (50 observations), during the second half of the study only white light was used (58 observations).  According to the authors 3 common responses were observed: 1. no reaction or just a slight reaction (no reaction), 2. the wild pigs moved away but for less than 5 minutes (flight < 5 min.), 3. the wild pigs moved away for more than 5 minutes or left for good (flight > 5 min.).

A total of 108 wild pig reactions were observed during the study with no reaction occurring 91 times, flight < 5 min. occurring 11 times and flight > 5 min. occurring 6 times. Based on their observations the researchers concluded that the use of nighttime lighting at the capture site only resulted in minimal disturbance.

My incidental observations fall in line with the research described above. Wild pigs observed at multiple trap sites showed minimal initial aversion to white light emitted from trail cameras. Additionally I observed minimal aversion to supplemental white light projected from solar powered walkway lighting placed on shelled corn bait piles.

(Installing solar-powered walkway lighting for strategic shooting of wild pigs)

The use of readily available and inexpensive white light sources can be used to provide land managers with additional wild pig management strategies such as strategic shooting. You can learn more on how to implement strategic shooting by watching the video Strategic Shooting of Feral Hogs for Population Control featuring Dr. Billy Higginbotham of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

Reference:

Fournier, P.,  D. Maillard, and C. Fournier-Chambrillon.  1995.  Use of spotlights for capturing wild boar (Sus scrofa).  IBEX Journal of Mountain Ecology 3:131-133.