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Tackling the problem takes a multi-faceted approach because pigs are smart. So, if you’re using single pig traps, for example, said Texas hog control expert Edward Dickey, the older pigs will teach the younger pigs to be afraid of them. “You’ve gotta really have an arsenal to combat these things; one single method will not work,” Dickey said by phone from Texas.

The best bet’s trapping, using bait and corrals, over several days, to lure and make the pigs comfortable, then using a camera, and a phone app, to trap the entire herd — called a sounder — at once.

We can't barbecue our way out

Of course, there are other strategies. You can kill wild hogs pretty much however you want in Texas, said Dickey, with the exception of poison.

“That means I can run over a hog with my truck if I want to,” he said.

But the actual plotted strategies include shooting them from helicopter and using dogs to run them down. And then there’s another, using a team of shooters to massacre the entire herd. There’s a two-fold benefit to this. In the summer, wild pigs are harder to corral since they have lots of food. So gunning them down is simpler.

But it can also be used to kill off the wild old pigs who are leery of corrals.

It’s called dumbing down the sounder. “We take out the larger hogs that are trap shy, and the younger ones, we can get them in the traps later,” said Dickey.

But this strategy of dumbing down the sounder, which Dickey says is “vital,” is very much illegal in much of Canada, since you can’t shoot at night.