http://www.journalpatriot.com/news/article_e722ed62-3182-11e1-bcc1-0019bb30f31a.htmlNew N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission rules for hunting and trapping feral hogs reflect concern about the spread of these non-native animals across North Carolina.
Although not expected to spread as rapidly as coyotes, state wildlife officials said feral hogs are now in most North Carolina counties and are increasing in numbers.
According to the N.C. Department of Agriculture, feral hogs have been in Wilkes, Caldwell, Alexander, Watauga and about a dozen other counties in western North Carolina since at least 1988.
Feral hogs have been known to range in the Little Brushy Mountains of southeastern Wilkes for many years, but state wildlife agents said they’ve been seen elsewhere in the county in recent years.
Under N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission temporary rules that that take effect Thursday, there are no bag limits or closed season for trapping of feral hogs.
Under the new rules, feral hogs may be live-trapped using only corral or box traps or constructed in a way that easily allows the escape or release of a non-target animal without harm. Feral swine must be euthanized while in the trap and may not be removed alive from any trap.
Also, trappers must have a commission-issued permit in addition to a hunting or trapping license and permit numbers must be placed on all traps. Self-issued permits will be available at
www.ncwildlife.org after Dec. 29.
According to the commission, permanent rules will be adopted later.
Previously, feral swine could be trapped only with a depredation permit available on the basis of economic damage, threat to human safety or documented overabundance.
Effective this past Oct. 1, the commission removed the wild boar classification from hogs in six western counties and classified all wild swine in the state as feral. With this classification, there are no limits or seasonal restrictions for shooting feral hogs and they’re no longer considered game animals.
Also effective Oct. 1, individuals transporting hogs without an official form of identification approved by the state veterinarian are subject to a civil penalty up to $5,000.
In August, the N.C. Wildlife Federation passed a resolution endorsing the commission’s action.
The resolution said feral swine present significant threats to livestock through transmission of harmful diseases, especially swine brucellosis and pseudo rabies.
It said feral swine also compete with native wildlife and forage upon native plants and native wildlife, such as amphibians and ground nesting birds, causing damage to these resources and polluting streams, wetlands, and watersheds from their rooting feeding tactics.
Feral swine damage is often caused at night when the animals are most active. The best way to tell if feral swine are active in an area is to look for common signs of rooting, rubbing, wallowing, tracks, and trails.
A USDA spokesman said agriculture and wildlife officials are concerned with how fast feral pig numbers were growing and spreading in North Carolina and several other states.
The USDA has set up a lab to monitor feral pigs in North Carolina. Feral swine have been known to carry or transmit over 30 diseases and 37 parasites that can be transmitted to livestock, people, pets and wildlife.
The USDA reported that roaming feral pigs have established populations in 37 of our 50 states, causing an estimated $800 million in damage annually.
The USDA has an office at North Carolina University in Raleigh. The phone number there for questions or reporting incidents is 919-855-7700.
Researchers at the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine collected fecal samples from feral pigs caught in eastern North Carolina to determine whether the pigs could be reservoirs of Salmonella and Clostridium difficile C. diff., common pathogens that are of concern to the swine industry due to their effect on domesticated pigs and their increasing frequency of resistance to multiple antibiotics.
This research found that about 5 percent of the feral population sampled was positive for Salmonella and 4 percent was positive for a highly antibiotic-resistant strain of C. diff.
The strains of Salmonella found in the feral pigs were those associated with reptiles and amphibians, which means that the pigs probably contracted them by contact with those animals in the wild.
Wild pigs can only be hunted between 30 minutes before sunrise and 30 minutes after sunset in North Carolina under the changes in state law that took effect Oct. 1.
Wild pigs feed in the day or night, changing their habits rapidly in response to the environment and/or human intrusion. They eat almost anything, plant or animal. Their sense of smell, according to Robbie Norville, a supervising wildlife biologist for the coastal region of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, is better than a dog’s. Their eyesight, he said, is about like a human’s.
It’s hard to put a number on their population, Norville said. But whatever it is, it will inevitably increase over time.
He said a sow can begin breeding at only six months of age. She can have a litter of four to 12 piglets about every three or four months during any time of the year. These piglets have a low mortality rate because the mother is extremely protective. Then six months later, those female piglets can breed, and so on.
While most of the wild swine in North Carolina are feral pigs, hunters brought and released 13 European boars at a game preserve at Hooper’s Bald in Graham County in 1912. By 1920, about 100 boars had escaped into the Great Smoky Mountains and had established a wild breeding population.
During the 1940s, wild boars were released in Green River Cove in Polk County.
