Kentucky has a feral hog problem, so snipers are shooting them from helicopters

The war on feral hogs at Land Between the Lakes on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee has escalated, with plans announced last week to shoot them on sight from helicopters.

The winter campaign to eradicate feral hogs at LBL begins in November and also includes bait trapping and euthanasia, managed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service.

Feral hogs are nonnative and threaten visitor safety, cultural sites, and native plant and wildlife species, LBL officials said.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service began assisting the Forest Service with trapping in 2014 with success, but not at a rate that keeps up with the hogs' rapid growth. In 2018, 70 feral hogs were euthanized by the inspection service. In 2019, that number grew to 124.

Feral hogs can have two litters per year averaging five to 10 piglets. Those offspring can give birth to a new generation in less than a year, making populations difficult to eradicate.

"It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of efforts," said Terri Brunjes, a wildlife biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. "I can't really tell you how long it would take."

Related: 'Fish fence' unveiled in Western Kentucky to stop Asian carp

Brunjes said she does believe feral hogs can be eradicated in Kentucky, though all the efforts could be undone with a single release of more pigs into the wild.

Hogs are considered feral, or wild, when they roam freely and aren’t marked to show ownership. According to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, wild pigs are not native to North America but have been in the United States since the 1500s, when Europeans brought domestic pigs as livestock and gave them free range around their settlements.

Reports of wild pigs began to emerge in Kentucky in the 1990s, when hunters released the animals illegally to hunt them for sport, and now wild pigs can be found “in all corners” of the commonwealth, according to the wildlife department.

The invasive species causes an abundance of problems for Kentucky wildlife and agriculture. They outcompete native wildlife for food and habitat resources, not unlike the Asian carp that have invaded surrounding lakes, and they destroy crops by upturning topsoil to feed on roots and other food sources.

The hogs not only destroy crops, native wildlife, cemeteries and streams, they also carry an array of diseases that can infect livestock, pets and humans.

See also: This video shows just how many Asian carp are invading Kentucky lakes

And, though not as well as Asian carp, hogs can swim. The boars have been known to swim the river to seek out females, Brunjes said.

Brad Robbins, USDA Wildlife Services district supervisor, said Kentucky doesn't have predators that can control the pig population, so it must be done by wildlife professionals.

The hogs are often trapped and euthanized, but helicopters are much more effective for a large group of hogs. While aerial operations have been used in other areas of Kentucky where large hog populations exist, Brunjes said this is the first time they are being used at Land Between the Lakes.

For the helicopters, the equipment and manpower have to be available, the weather has to be right, and the trees have to be clear of leaves for better visibility.

"All the stars have to line up," Robbins said. "However, when the stars line up, there's not a tool in the box that can compete with this. If you've got large pieces of contiguous real estate, and if you've got a population of pigs on that real estate, there's nothing that can compete with this."

The trained shooters will use a 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun from treetop level.

The hogs have to be left where they are because they're often found in landscapes where it's difficult to recover them. What officials called "natural recycling" takes care of the carcasses, a process Brunjes said moves fairly quickly.

Weather: What the squirrels and trees are saying about this year's winter

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife recently launched a "report don't shoot" campaign to encourage anyone who spots the hogs to report the sighting to officials instead of shooting them.

“Hunting wild hogs is counterproductive to agency eradication efforts,” Brunjes said. “Hogs that are hunted disperse into new areas and become very difficult to find and euthanize."

On top of dispersing, when hunted the hogs are capable of becoming nocturnal, making it even more difficult to track and trap them.

And as far as hunting goes, hunters have a definite interest in getting rid of the hogs, which drive down populations of deer and turkeys.

For more information about feral hogs in Kentucky, visit fw.ky.gov/wildlife.