Wild Hogs Again Take Spotlight In Michigan

Richard Buikema was a little discouraged on September 23 of this year when he checked the trap he had obtained through the Michigan Wild Hog Removal Program.  “I found hog tracks going right up to the gate of the trap before they just turned away,” he recounted.  “I couldn’t figure out what could have possibly gone wrong.”  His puzzlement was understandable because wild hogs had been eating his bait (soured corn) at the Mecosta County site regularly until he set the trigger on the trap two days later.  But a few more days of patience paid off.  On September 27 there were five wild hogs in the trap including a 275-pounder.

Except for the temporary glitch on the first few days after the trap was set, Mr. Buikema’s trapping experience was pretty much problem-free.  It illustrates how the Michigan Wild Hog Removal Program can work.  Mr. Buikema discovered wild hogs on a property he hunts in late August 2010.  He sent trail camera photos of two wild hogs (taken at night) and pig sign to staff of the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, which developed the Michigan Wild Hog Removal Program in January of this year.  The Conservancy arranged for a trap to be delivered to the site within a few days by staff of the USDA Wildlife Services Branch.  Mr. Buikema then followed the preferred protocol, pre-baiting an area before setting up the 15-foot diameter corral-type trap around the bait after the hogs were feeding there routinely.  On the day the wild hogs were discovered in the trap, he contacted Wildlife Services which sent two disease control specialists—one from Wildlife Services and one from the Michigan Department of Agriculture—to take blood samples from the hogs for testing.

Mr. Buikema’s successful trapping effort occurred at a time when state officials were deciding whether to ban wild hogs from Michigan.  In July, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) announced it would classify wild hogs as an invasive, exotic and prohibited species under Public Act 451, Michigan’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act of 1994.  The Act was amended in 2009 requiring the Director of the DNRE to list any species that met certain criteria as invasive (and prohibited).  The wild hog, as invasive and destructive as an animal can be, meets all criteria.  So, the action was anticipated to occur this past summer and prohibit possession of wild hogs.  This is considered critical to “shutting off the faucet” of wild hogs escaping from game ranches and breeding facilities around the state.  But incredibly, the state’s Natural Resources Commission (NRC) began to bow to pressure from the game ranch industry and asked the DNRE to consider a regulatory approach that would continue to allow game ranches to bring in and keep wild hogs.  As of October, DNRE Director, Rebecca Humphries, had repeatedly postponed a decision on the classification despite the clear requirement of P.A. 451.

This summer and fall, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy sent letters to both DNRE Director Humphries and the NRC urging the ban on wild hogs.  Conservancy staff provided related testimony at meetings in Escanaba and Lansing.  Numerous game ranch industry representatives also testified at those meetings, calling a ban unnecessary and punitive.  While the NRC was listening to claims of the game ranchers that there are no wild hogs on the loose, volunteers in the Michigan Wild Hog Removal Program were finding wild hogs—sometimes just hundreds of yards outside game ranches.

The Michigan Wildlife Conservancy developed the Michigan Wild Hog Removal Program in partnership with USDA Wildlife Services and other organizations to train volunteers to assist with hog trapping, promote the shooting of wild hogs by Michigan citizens, and educate the public about the growing menace.  With wild hogs doing $1.5 billion in damages annually throughout the U.S., one would think Michigan would follow the advice of out-of-state experts and pull out all the stops to control wild hogs.  But since 2001 when the first well-documented escape of wild hogs from a Michigan game ranch occurred, there has been little state action to solve the problem.

In October, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy began, under an agreement with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), to train federal officials who administer provisions of the Farm Bill, as well as citizens, to detect and control wild hogs in Arenac, Bay, Gladwin and Midland Counties.  More than 50 people received training from the Conservancy at sessions held on October 6 at the Bay City State Park Visitor’s Center.  The NRCS is launching a program in the four-county area to provide landowners who qualify for benefits under the Farm Bill with incentives to detect and control wild hogs on their properties.  Wild hogs have caused considerable damage to crops and lawns in those counties after some well-publicized escapes from game ranches and breeding facilities north of Midland.

Germany Can’t Shake its Wild Hog Problems

 Wild boars (hogs) originated in Europe and Asia before being translocated throughout the world by humans.  Germany is one of a host of Old World countries with a long history of wild boar problems.  There are currently thousands within the city limits of Berlin and elsewhere in the country.  Traditional wild boar control efforts are not solving the problem.

 As if that’s not enough, scientists recently discovered that Germany’s wild boars are becoming increasingly radioactive!  It seems that the unique tendencies of wild boars to feed heavily on mushrooms and truffles, which accumulate radioactivity, and to root in contaminated soil causes wild hogs to carry high levels of radioactive cesium 137.  The source of the radiation was the Chernobyl disaster 24 years ago in which a nuclear reactor in the Ukraine leaked radiation.  The isotope has a half-life of 30 years and has worked down into the soils of southern Germany where the boar population is exploding.

 In an attempt to prevent health problems, the German government is now paying hunters to discard the meat of wild boars if it tests too radioactive to eat.  The country paid out the equivalent of about half a million U.S. dollars last year to people who threw out boar meat rather than eating it.

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