Feral Hogs: Invasive Species or Nature's Bounty?

Human Organization, Fall 2009 by Weeks, Priscilla, Packard, Jane

Invasive species have been identified as an international conservation crisis. Federal land managers have been mandated to control invasive species on their lands and to restore native species. Such action can have consequences for local communities that have incorporated the non-native species into their culture and economy. Previously managed by local stockmen as free-ranging livestock, feral hogs are now perceived by conservation professionals and advocates as an invasive species that threatens native plants and animals. We use the public scoping process associated with a proposed feral hog (Sus scrofa) management plan for a National Park Service managed biological preserve to examine how the scientific conceptualization of hogs as an invasive species undermines traditional claims to natural resources. We then offer some potential models of how elements associated with traditional stockmen culture might augment scientific management.

Key words: conservation, biodiversity, rural communities, national park, swine, pig, feral hog, invasive species, non-native, alien

Introduction

Managers of conservation lands (i.e., parks, preserves, state owned forests, and wildlife management areas) face myriad biophysical and social challenges. Biophysical challenges include habitat degradation due to over extraction, increasing land fragmentation with encroaching human development, erosion, pollution, invasive species, and species decline. Social challenges arise because conservation lands were not always designated as such. Many were once hunted, fished, foraged, mined, grazed, and/or lived on. As such, many of these lands are culturally, and often economically, important to the human communities near them.

This paper discusses the thorny social and biophysical issue of the control of non-native invasive species, specifically feral hogs, which are ubiquitous throughout Texas (Adams et al. 2005) and which resource managers in governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are trying control on their lands. It focuses on hog management in the Big Thicket National Preserve, a unit of the National Park Service (NPS) in East Texas. Feral hogs have been in the state of Texas since the 1500s and, although recognized as a nuisance and potential threat, are a source of income from recreational hunting, provide a living for professional trappers, and, importantly for the case described here, are part of community heritage, both as an economic and a cultural resource.

Conservation land managers consider feral hogs to be a non-native invasive species (NNIS). They are non-native, having been introduced into Texas by Spanish missionaries, and invasive, in that they rapidly reproduce and spread into new areas. As Head and Muir (2004) remind us, non-native and invasive are separate qualities. Given the right conditions, such as changing land use or land degradation, native species can also be invasive and not all introduced species become invasive. Mesquite in south Texas is an example of the former and the China rose is an example of the latter. As we discuss further on in this paper, local communities, hunters, and scientists in East Texas agree that hogs spread rapidly and, if not managed, can cause damage, i.e., that there can be too many. What is contested by the local communities we worked with in East Texas is the notion that feral hogs are not native, that they are out of place in the East Texas woods, and that they are of no ecological or social value. Also to be resolved is the issue of how many is too many.

To managers of conservation lands, the management goal concerning feral hogs is to drastically reduce, and preferably to eradicate, them. In several cases, this has put land managers at odds with local communities, especially local hunters. Nationally, a combination of approaches has been used: fencing, professional hunters, trapping, baiting, and public hunts (Bieber and Ruf 2005; Engeman et al. 2007).

On a practical level, the goal of hog management on NPS lands varies with the economic, social, and ecological characteristics of each park. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an example where the goal is hog reduction rather than hog elimination. Hogs are valued by the local Appalachian culture in communities surrounding the Park. Since public hunting is not legal due to the enabling legislation for the Park, the control efforts are accomplished by employees of the National Park Service.

In contrast, hogs have not previously occupied Big Bend National Park (Adams et al. 2005). The goal there is hog elimination, to prevent establishment of a new population moving in along the Rio Grande River. A similar situation occurs at Pinnacles National Monument. Public hunting is not an option in these two protected areas due to the enabling legislation. An Act of Congress would be needed to allow public hunting in Big Bend or Pinnacles.1

Hog control can be controversial. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been dealing with this issue on its Hawaiian preserves for over a decade and has tried fencing, snaring, public and professional hunts, and trapping. Snaring was considered to be inhumane by animal rights activists and wasteful of meat by Native Hawaiians. Hogs and hog hunting have a special place in Hawaiian society, and some local communities were not in favor of total eradication (Maguire, Jenkins, and Nugent 1997). TNC did work with local hunters to control hogs, but this did not produce the reduction numbers the Conservancy desired. After determining that hogs were still an issue on conservation lands on Molokai even after being hunted, TNC, with the National Park Service, hired New Zealand based ProHunt to conduct aerial hunts to further reduce hog numbers (New Zealand Press Association 2007). Molokai hunters protested, claiming that a third of island residents, who are predominately Hawaiian, depended on subsistence hog hunting for their meat. These local hunters worried that professional hunters would take too many hogs, not leaving a large enough population to sustain subsistence hunting (Ibid. 2007). The Nature Conservancy's instructions to ProHunt to work with local residents to distribute the meat, and not leave it on the ground for scavengers (one option during aerial hunts), signals their concern for Hawaiian feelings. However, it did not address local hunters' desire to maintain a hog population substantial enough to hunt in the future. Additionally, local hunters claimed that hiring professionals from New Zealand smacked of colonialism because outsiders were being brought in to harvest resources in their forests.