海角社区

Fighting an Invasion of Wild Pigs

Wild pigs are everywhere in Louisiana. They rampage through forests and farms and pose a danger to the environment, people and other animals. There are now more invasive wild pigs in the state than there are people in the most populous cities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport combined鈥攃lose to 1 million.

Farmers have certainly noticed. Wild pigs cause significant damage to crops, costing farmers more than 90 million annually. Pigs also replicate quickly. A single sow can produce more than 400 descendants in three years. When food is abundant, any local wild pig population can double within mere months.

鈥淎nd in Louisiana, with our growing seasons, there鈥檚 always something to eat,鈥� said Glen Gentry, who is an animal scientist and director and coordinator of two 海角社区 AgCenter research stations, including Idlewild, which specializes in wildlife management.

For close to a decade, Gentry has been working on solutions to the rapidly growing wild pig problem. Together with 海角社区 chemistry professor John Pojman, he has come up with a patent-pending recipe for a bait that wild pigs love to eat. Ironically, the key ingredient is the same as for bacon鈥攑ink curing salt, or sodium nitrite.

With $50K in recent support from the Louisiana Legislature and $120K from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the researchers are now moving into semi-controlled field trials.

鈥淓very farmer out here has this problem with wild pigs, and every year it gets worse. You鈥檙e sitting in the combine in the field and you鈥檙e cutting through it and there鈥檚 nothing there to harvest. It鈥檚 very, very frustrating. So, the sooner we get 海角社区鈥檚 solution out here, the better. We want it in the field, and quick.鈥�

Charles Reiners, farmer in Acadia Parish