Feral hog population threatens NM agriculture industry

From the Portales News-Tribune

The feral hog is rapidly becoming the new coyote, or pest, for farmers across eastern New Mexico, a state agriculutural official said Thursday at the 41st annual Agricultural and Home Economics Seminar in Tucumcari. State officials outlined the problem as well as a creative program still being developed to help control feral hogs. Feral or wild hogs damage land and crops and carry at least 37 parasites that can affect people, pets, livestock and wildlife, said New Mexico Department of Agriculture disease biologist Justin Stevenson. Stevenson said feral hogs can also be carriers of bovine tuberculosis and pseudo-rabies. “When a feral hog spreads the pseudo-rabies to livestock, it usually results in...death,” Stevenson said. “The livestock start exhibiting symptoms such as a mad itch and die within one day.” The agency is working on a new way to cut back the population of the wild omnivore population in New Mexico. The population control program has been dubbed the “Judas Hog Operation.” The program would release a sterilized female feral hog into the wild. The female would be equipped with a tracking collar. Once located with a pack of hogs, the hogs would be killed and the female would be released again to locate another pack.