Hog Bounty Program Up and Running in U.P.

The Delta County Conservation District is administering a privately-funded program aimed at eradicating, or at least reducing, the number of wild hogs in the Central Upper Peninsula. The two-year pilot program got started in mid-April with funding from the U.P. Whitetails organization and the District.

In early January, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy had publicly called for hog bounties across the state to avoid serious, long-term damage to MichiganŐs agricultural and natural resources. Nationwide, wild hogs conservatively cause $800 million worth of damage annually to crops, golf courses, lawns and forests by their feeding and rooting habits. They are also vicious predators of livestock, deer fawns and ground-nesting birds.

Wild hogs, including descendants of Eurasian wild boars, have been escaping from commercial game ranches in our state for a decade or more, and have now been confirmed in 63 of MichiganŐs 83 counties. They are reproducing in the wild and are already causing crop and forest damage. Pseudorabies, a viral disease that is a huge threat to the domestic swine industry, has been found in several free-roaming wild hogs in Michigan.

The Conservancy believes bounty systems will draw attention to the need for citizens to shoot wild hogs at every opportunity. The program administered by the District primarily targets hogs in Delta and Marquette County, but citizens throughout the U.P. can turn in wild hogs for bounty payments of $85 for adult females, $50 for adult males, and $15 for sub-adult hogs. The program also encourages citizens to phone-in reports of wild hog sightings to the District at 906-428-4706, ext 3. Volunteers will follow-up on the reports and attempt to direct hunters to areas with concentrations of wild hogs.