Improving wild hog control with advanced trapping methods.

The most effective methods of controlling wild hog populations is a combination of tactical night hunting, trapping, hunting with dogs and day hunting with a radio frequency (RF) tracking system.

JAGER PRO Trapping Research and Development-

JAGER PRO is currently conducting two years of research and filming hours of thermal video to test various traps and techniques. Our goal is to document the techniques which work best and provide a video of lessons learned. You will actually see hogs enter the traps and how they react to various trap doors and designs.

The most effective design in our early research seems to be a large corral trapping system with a spring door to allow continuous capture of entire sounder groups. This method promotes multiple catches by using the trapped animals as decoys. Singles continue to enter the trap after the door is triggered. This approach seems to be a very effective method and frequently results in high volume removal of wild hogs.

Traps have been tested as squares, triangles and circles. Round traps seem to provide advantages over the others in that the rounded shape provides the largest trap area for materials used and there are no corners for the animals to pile up. The rounded shape aids in the flow of wild hogs inside the trap.

There have been few published studies to determine the most efficient trap design to effectively reduce the agricultural and environmental damage of wild hogs. We will continue our research throughout 2008 to provide day and night video documentation of our findings. We will report the trap designs, techniques and products tested which prove to be most effective.