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Land and Livestock Workshop set Nov. 21 in Comstock

October 24, 2019 by Teri Gaston

Topics to include wild pigs, post-anthrax deer management

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service is holding a multi-county land and livestock program on Nov. 21 in Comstock.

Presented by the AgriLife Extension offices of Terrell and Val Verde counties, the event will run from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., with registration at 9:30 a.m. It will be held at the Comstock Community Center, 68 Langtry St. The cost is $20 and includes lunch.

There will be one Texas Department of Agriculture continuing education unit available in integrated pest management.

“We’ve lined up speakers to address some of the most pressing issues facing our local communities,” said Emily Grant, AgriLife Extension agent for Val Verde County. “We’ll be covering how to manage deer after the large anthrax outbreak we experienced this summer and what people need to know to curb the destruction and spread of wild pigs.”

Topics and speakers include:

–  Expansion and Management of Feral Hogs – Maureen Frank, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension wildlife specialist, Uvalde.

– Interaction of Plants and Livestock – Bob Lyons, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension range specialist, Uvalde.

– Laws Texas Landowners Need to Know – Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, AgriLife Extension agricultural law specialist, Amarillo.

– Deer Management Post Anthrax – Frank.

– Prescribed Fire – Chase McCrory, Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist, Sanderson.

“I’m hoping we have a large group of landowners, and those in charge of land management turn out for this important event,” said Jessica McCrory, AgriLife Extension agent for Terrell County.  “The AgriLife Extension experts we’ve assembled are always in demand to speak on their respective topics and this is an excellent opportunity to learn from the leaders in their fields, all in a one-day event.”

Contact Grant at 830-774-7591 or McCrory at 432-345-2291 for more information.

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The post Land and Livestock Workshop set Nov. 21 in Comstock appeared first on AgriLife Today.

Filed Under: Programs, Wildlife Tagged With: anthrax, Deer, Dr. Maureen Frank, feral hogs, wild pigs

AgriLife Extension sets Concho Valley Wild Pig Management Workshop Sept. 12 in San Angelo

August 30, 2018 by Teri Gaston

August 24, 2018

Writer: Steve Byrns, 325-653-4576, s-byrns@tamu.edu

Contact: Josh Blanek, 325-659-6523, j-blanek@tamu.edu

SAN ANGELO – The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service will conduct the Concho Valley Wild Pig Management Workshop on Sept. 12 at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at San Angelo.

The center is located north of town on U.S. Highway 87. The free multi-county workshop opens at 8:30 a.m. with registration, followed by the program from 9 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

The AgriLife Extension counties involved with the event are Tom Green, Irion, Sterling, Coke, Runnels, Concho and Schleicher.

This event is provided through a Clean Water Act Section 319(h) nonpoint source grant from the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Lunch will be provided courtesy of the Coke County Livestock and Wildlife Protection Association and the Sterling Wildlife Conservation Association.

RSVP before Sept. 7 to any of the participating AgriLife Extension offices. More information is available there or by contacting Josh Blanek, AgriLife Extension agent in Tom Green County, at 325-659-6523, j-blanek@tamu.edu .

Four general Texas Department of Agriculture continuing education units will be offered.

“The old axiom about two kinds of landowners — those with feral hogs and those who are about to — sure rings true in our area,” Blanek said. “We’ve seen a huge influx of the pests here in recent years, which is the reason we are having this workshop and involving so many counties.

“Our goal is to bring landowners, managers and really, anyone facing the influx, abreast of the situation and what can be done to manage it.”

Topics and speakers will include:

-Wild Pig Biology, Impacts and Control, Josh Helcel, AgriLife Extension associate with Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, Burnet. Helcel will discuss the biology and impact feral hogs have on the environment and discuss control options including trapping and exclusion fencing.

-Wild Pig Safety and Disease Concerns, Dr. Pete Fincher, veterinarian, Texas Animal Health Commission, Region 6 director, Lampasas. Fincher will discuss health concerns for humans, livestock and wildlife, to include the hunting, handling and processing of feral swine.

-Development of an Oral Toxicant for Wild Pigs, Dr. John Tomecek, AgriLife Extension wildlife specialist, Thrall. Tomecek will speak on new developments and projected uses of oral agents for wild pig control once they become available, including their proper use and rules and regulations.

-Wild Pig Trapping and Snaring Demonstration, Doug Steen, Texas Wildlife Services district supervisor, San Angelo. Steen, along with Helcel and Tomecek, will talk about and show different methods to control wild pigs through the proper use of baits, traps and snares.

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Filed Under: News, Programs Tagged With: Dr. John Tomecek, wild pig management, wild pigs

Hiring MS Assistantship – Wild Pigs

March 19, 2018 by Teri Gaston

We are hiring a MS assistantship focused on human dimensions of wild pigs to include control, harvest, and propagation. The work from this program will help inform future outreach efforts on control, and the understanding of recreational harvest of wild pigs. The student will examine many aspects of control effectiveness, and generate recommendations for changes and improvements to control strategies, educational outreach to the public, and an overall state of wildlife damage management related to wild pigs.

This is a fully-supported MS program including stipend, tuition and fees, and health insurance. The student will be based in College Station, Texas. Although it is a human-dimensions project, there will be ample opportunity for field experiences, include wild pig trapping, processing, and recreational harvest. The student can expect to travel widely across the State of Texas, and beyond.

Please see the job listing below, and forward to all those you feel would be interested.

https://wfscjobs.tamu.edu/…/graduate-research-assistantshi…/

Filed Under: News, Programs Tagged With: MS Assistantship, wild pigs

AgriLife Research scientists study wild pig impact on bobwhite quail populations

April 7, 2016 by

By: Paul Schattenberg

UVALDE — As part of an effort to understand the reasons behind the decline in wild quail populations, researchers from Texas A&M AgriLife Research have studied whether the continued increase in numbers and distribution of wild pigs, commonly referred to as feral hogs, may be a contributing factor.

According to data from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, within the South Texas Plains ecoregion bobwhite populations have been consistently low since the mid-1990s and to date have shown few signs of recovery despite land-management efforts to improve populations.

“Wild pigs are known to eat the eggs of ground-nesting birds, but whether they impact wild quail populations is unknown,” said Dr. Susan Cooper, AgriLife Research natural resource ecologist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Uvalde, who served as lead study investigator.

Wild pigs, commonly known as feral hogs, are known to predate quail nests and eat their eggs. (Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo)

Wild pigs, commonly known as feral hogs, are known to predate quail nests and eat their eggs. (Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo)

Cooper said nest predation studies using artificial nests baited with quail or chicken eggs, as well as in-vivo field experience, showed wild pigs invade the nests of bobwhite quail to consume their eggs.

“Our study was able to demonstrate that on semi-arid rangeland, differences in habitat use and selection by Northern bobwhites and wild pigs should limit interaction between the species,” she said.

However, she noted, the study also showed there are still opportunities for quail nest depredation by wild pigs due to riparian areas providing access to drier upland areas.

By comparing the habitat use of quail and wild pigs, Cooper and her fellow scientists hoped to provide guidance on the rangeland sites where control of the feral swine might have the greatest positive impact on northern bobwhite quail populations. To achieve this, the scientists solicited the cooperation of the owner of an 84,000-acre-plus, low-fenced ranch in Zavala County used for game production and cattle grazing.

“We combined GPS data on the movements of 40 feral hogs collected in a prior study, with 10 years of spring call-count data available for quail on the ranch and three nearby properties,” Cooper said.

To get information on their habitat preferences, wild pigs were trapped and outfitted with a GPS collar. (Texas A&M AgriLife research photo)

To get information on their habitat preferences, wild pigs were trapped and outfitted with a GPS collar. (Texas A&M AgriLife research photo)

The call counts were made annually from 2004 to 2014 during mating season — mid-April through May. Quail rooster calls were recorded at 10 call stations spaced equidistantly along about a 10-mile route on each ranch. Information on habitat use and selection by wild pigs was based on two years of data collected on the main study ranch using GPS-collared wild pigs whose movements were recorded every 15 minutes.

“Through combining these studies, our goal was to identify habitats within South Texas rangeland in which wild pigs were most likely to overlap in distribution with the bobwhites,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service had determined the soil types of the study ranch were predominantly clays and clay-loams with a small area of deep sandy soil..

“The most characteristic woody plant on the ranches was honey mesquite, which was growing in combination with pricklypear cactus and a diverse array of drought-tolerant shrubs,” Cooper said. “Riparian areas were predominantly narrow bands of dense shrubs and mesquite trees along drainage areas. In contrast, the sandy areas provided an open prairie habitat.”

Research results showed bobwhites on the study ranch strongly preferred the area with deep sandy soil. In contrast, wild pigs favored areas underlain by clay soils, and especially riparian areas of that soil type. On the other three ranches, which lacked the sandy soils, the bobwhites showed no clear preference for any particular ecological site.

“There is a thermoregulatory requirement for wild pigs to stay near riparian areas because, like their domesticated relatives, they have no sweat glands and the water and cool ground in these locations help regulate their body temperature,” Cooper said.

She said in spring and summer, when quail have nests on the ground that are vulnerable to predation by mammals, feral hogs were typically in the vicinity of water and riparian habitats that make unsuitable nesting habitat for quail.

The study showed the greatest overlap in habitat selection by wild pigs and bobwhites occurred early in the quail-breeding season when the swine were more often located in the clay-loam areas.

“These shrub dominated sites, while not highly preferred by bobwhites as long-term habitats, are used extensively for nesting,” she said. “However, most locations of wild pigs within clay-loam areas were not in native vegetation but fallow fields too sparsely vegetated to be of use to nesting quails. Thus chances of the swine locating quail nests were less than may be expected.”

However, Cooper noted, the network of creeks and drainages allowed hogs to infiltrate into drier rangeland areas where quail do nest.

“The special distribution of creeks and drainages may provide these opportunistic omnivores with travel routes into the drier upland areas preferred by bobwhites as a habitat for establishing their nests,” she said.   

Filed Under: Feral Hogs, News, Research, Wildlife Tagged With: Dr. Susan Cooper, quail, wild pigs

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