Wild Hogs

[Gumbo]

Four or five years ago we started seeing wild hogs at our place in south Mississippi, which according to our neighbors who have been there forever, is unprecedented. I was excited because it added a new dimension to hunting at the camp, but in the past two years they've all but vanished. We definitely didn't kill them off and they definitely didn't run out of food so my question is, do hog populations roam? I know the answer seems obvious since they weren't there one day and then they were the next, but I suppose I had always assumed that the population had just proliferated to where we were. They were a variety of russian boar I believe.

 

[oleheat]

I believe they do travel where I hunt. We'll go a while without noticing any sign, and then- bam. They're back. We always see more of them when the persimmons have a good year....

 

[Gus McCrae]

After we had disc-ed up our food plots/trails, we saw hogs all the time. We hunted them pretty hard before deer season, when the grass grew up, they went into the hardwood and stopped seeing any sign of them on the trails/food plots.

 

[Bearco]

I hunt near Bodcau WMA. They have plenty of hogs that only sometimes show up on our lease. We shot several two years ago, then they left again. I think one hog was seen this season on our lease.

 

[keano44]

Hogs are highly intelligent. If you hunted them hard, as you say, the pressure would drive them to find a safer place to live/eat.

 

[42]

Four or five years ago we started seeing wild hogs at our place in south Mississippi, which according to our neighbors who have been there forever, is unprecedented. I was excited because it added a new dimension to hunting at the camp, but in the past two years they've all but vanished. We definitely didn't kill them off and they definitely didn't run out of food so my question is, do hog populations roam? I know the answer seems obvious since they weren't there one day and then they were the next, but I suppose I had always assumed that the population had just proliferated to where we were. They were a variety of russian boar I believe.

Typically they migrate outside of the breeding season. But this is also dependent on food supply, predator migration, counter-urbanization, etc.....

 

[sandman7925]

Water seems to to control where they stay and go. If it dries up on you're land they will leave looking for saturated ground.

 

[GClifton]

I received a questioner in the mail several months ago, regarding opinions on black bears. It seems the questions were centered around "placing" black bears in the areas that are heavily populated with hogs. It's my understanding that bears eat the piglets. The information received stated that a" bear season" may be available if the bear population needed thinning out. Did anyone else receive this information ?

 

[wadepat2]

I would rather deal with Hogs than Bears...

 

[SpencerSS]

I would rather deal with Hogs than Bears...

Bears don't do damage like hogs. A hog population at carrying capacity is hundreds of times what a bear population at carrying capacity is. So if a choice could be made, it would be between a few bears or hundreds of hogs.

Just to be fussy, they are feral hogs, not wild hogs.