It looks like the hunting of feral hogs in Arkansas is under review. Apparently, hog hunting was semi-banned on Commission-owned property by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) recently. Now, however, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Director Jeff Crow proposed a temporary reversal of regulations prohibiting the take of feral hogs. If the hog regulation change passes, hunters will be allowed to take feral hogs during open bear, deer or elk firearms seasons with weapons legal for those seasons.
The proposal stems from public comments after the hog hunting regulation was passed in May. Confusion over the reasoning behind the “protection” of feral hogs was a primary concern.
“The idea that we want to eliminate hogs on a WMA but won’t allow the public to shoot one if they see it does seem counter intuitive,” Crow said during committee meetings. “The idea was to eliminate the incentive for future illegal releases of hogs and to cut down on disturbance that can spook the hogs and make them much harder to trap.”
The AGFC has begun an aggressive hog trapping campaign in the last few years, catching whole sounders in one swoop instead of taking single hogs here and there.
“This new method eliminates many more hogs without scattering the rest of the sounder,” Crow said. “I still firmly believe that the restriction on taking hogs on WMAs is a good one, and that recreational pursuit of hogs is not the answer to the problem, but we need to give the public and our sister conservation agencies more time to review and understand this effort.”
Crow says the restriction to eliminate killing hogs on all AGFC-owned WMAs will be presented again in 2019, but feral hogs are highly-adaptable, highly-prolific mammals. From my experience, there is no single way to control wild pigs. I suspect this will hold true in the state of Arkansas.
The recreational hunting of feral hogs will not significantly decrease hog populations, but it also will not spread feral hog populations throughout the land. Trapping, while good, will not get them all, either. Hogs spread diseases and compete with native wildlife. When it comes to feral hogs, anyone that is willing to put a bullet in a hog should be allowed to do so.