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View MapHe and other ranchers and farmers in Texas and the South are waging an uphill battle against herds of voracious feral hogs. The beasts, up to 3 feet tall and 400 pounds, devour feed intended for livestock and tear up pastures at his 300-acre Red Cap Farms in their incessant search for food.
“See how rough it is?” a frustrated Gipson said as his pickup truck bounced across the once-smooth pasture.
They show little respect for traditional barriers like barbed wire fencing, which merely acts as backscratchers for their hairy leathery hides.
“They got in that yard a couple weeks ago and cultivated it,” Gipson, 67, said, nodding to an area outside his shop. “I smoothed it out and I’ll be damned if they didn’t come back the next night and cultivate it again.
“Nothing’s safe,” he said.
And the population of Texas wild pigs - now topping 2 million - is exploding thanks to high reproductive rates and few natural predators.
The Texas AgriLife Extension Service estimates the hogs cause $50 million in damage each year.
But the answer may be coming from a lab at Texas A&M University, where a team of researchers is testing an oral contraceptive for the hogs and other pests. It may even become applicable for pets like cats and dogs.
Duane Kraemer, a professor of veterinary physiology and pharmacology who heads the team at Texas A&M, said ranchers and farmers who hear about his research want to know more, “but development of an oral contraceptive for an animal that people eat and is to be released into the environment is a complex issue, no question about it.”