Alabama loosens regulations to hunt wild hogs

In February we reported the proliferation of wild swine had reached all but six states. Now one has loosened hunting regulations to deal with it. Alabama regulators allow property owners to "get permits to hunt the pigs at night using sniper sites," Jim Cook of The Dothan Eagle reports. "Property owners with permits also can use bait to attract hogs." Licensed hunters can shoot the pigs year-round with no limit.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports feral hogs did almost $90 million in damage to farms in Alabama alone and $1.5 billion in damage to farms nationwide last year, Cook writes. Despite the new hunting regulations, Chris Jaworowski, an Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources wildlife biologist, cautions that hunting and killing the hogs isn't the best population control method. "A more time and cost-effective method of reducing the population is trapping the hogs, as it is less time consuming," Cook writes. (Read more)