How States are Fighting Back Against Feral Hogs: Lessons from Georgia and Arkansas

How States are Fighting Back Against Feral Hogs: Lessons from Georgia and Arkansas

Feral hogs are one of the most destructive invasive species in the country, and no single landowner or agency can solve the problem alone. That was the throughline of our latest Pig Brig® webinar, "Feral Hogs: How States Are Fighting Back," where three state program leaders shared what is actually working on the ground.

Dr. Aaron Sumrall, Pig Brig's Director of Outreach, Education, and Research, brought together three experts:

  • Charlie Killmaster, State Deer and Feral Pig Biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
  • Marc Land, Feral Hog Program Manager with the Georgia Association of Conservation Districts.
  • Ryan Farney, Feral Hog Program Coordinator with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Here is a recap of the programs they described, the results they are seeing, and the lessons other states and communities can borrow.

One Message From Every State: Trapping Moves the Needle

Before getting into the individual programs, one theme came up again and again. Hunting and incidental harvest help hold a population steady, but they rarely drive it down. In Georgia, for example, hunters take an estimated 200,000 feral hogs a year, which Killmaster described as enough to stabilize the population but not enough to shrink it.

Whole-sounder trapping, where the entire social group is captured at once, is the tool all three experts pointed to as the real difference maker. Catch part of a sounder and the survivors grow trap-shy and harder to catch. Catch the whole group and, with continued management, you can actually reduce the population.

Georgia: A Coordinated, Statewide Approach

The Feral Hog Task Force

Georgia has lived with feral pigs for hundreds of years, so its strategy is built around control and coordination rather than the hope of eradication. Killmaster explained that the state's Feral Hog Task Force, first formed in the early 2010s and restructured in 2023 into a tighter core group, now unites the agencies with regulatory, funding, and control roles. Those include Georgia DNR, the Georgia Department of Agriculture, the University of Georgia, USDA, and the Georgia Association of Conservation Districts.

Their shared objectives are to centralize data collection, unify education and outreach, coordinate control efforts, support funding, and shape regulations. To track progress, the task force built a dashboard that maps control efforts across the state.

Smarter Regulations

On the legal side, Georgia passed the Feral Hog Control Act, which tightly regulates the transport of live feral hogs. Because it is nearly impossible to catch someone in the act of releasing pigs, the state made transporting live hogs the offense instead, closing a loophole used by bad actors who restock pigs and undo control work. Euthanized hogs can be moved freely, while live transport now requires a narrow, heavily regulated permit.

More recently, 2026 legislation clarified that no license is required to trap feral hogs, allowed drones to be used to locate them, and permitted shooting hogs from a vehicle on private interior roads. The overall direction, Killmaster said, has been to deregulate hog control as much as possible so landowners can pull out all the stops.

Trap Rental and the Hog Down Awards

Georgia DNR manages direct control on more than a million acres of wildlife management areas, primarily with traps, and partners with the conservation districts on a trap rental program so landowners can access a trap for a small fee instead of buying one outright.

To promote trapping as a first-line tool, the state also launched the Hog Down Awards, funded by a $100,000 legislative appropriation. Each quarter, the program gives away five Pig Brig® net trap systems. To enter, a Georgia resident must remove ten feral hogs in the quarter and submit geotagged, timestamped photos. A media campaign around the awards drew more than a million views, and follow-up surveys of trap winners begin in October 2026 to measure how much the equipment improved their results.

Georgia: Custodians and Trap Rental Through the Conservation Districts

Marc Land walked through the Georgia Association of Conservation Districts program, which began in 2017 in a single northeast Georgia district, where landowners were on the verge of abandoning bottomland to hog damage. The district bought equipment and enlisted a custodian to manage it and trap hogs. The model worked, and it spread.

Today the program runs across 27 districts with roughly 60 custodians, focused largely on protecting agriculture. Landowners can find a custodian through the map at gacd.us under the Feral Swine resources. Custodian fees are arranged directly between the landowner and the custodian, and some do not charge at all.

The districts also run at least four public workshops a year, with a fifth added this year by request, covering pig biology, regulations, personal protective equipment and carcass disposal, and disease. The program recently held its first workshop in an urban area, in DeKalb County near Atlanta, and expects to hold more.

In 2024, the conservation districts launched a trap rental pilot in southwest Georgia in partnership with Pig Brig, renting 20 traps for a small fee for up to three months at a time. Renters complete a short online course at GeorgiaFeralSwine.com first. Demand has been strong, requiring some people to wait, and the districts hope to expand. Catch data flows back to the state dashboard, and the program is rolling out a mobile data app, Hog Track, in August so custodians and renters can log removals right at the trap.

Arkansas: A Cost-Share Incentive Program

Ryan Farney described the Arkansas Conservation Incentive Program, a 2024 pilot funded by the state legislature. With about 32 million acres, 75 counties, and feral hogs in nearly every one, Arkansas cannot cover the state with agency staff alone, so the Game and Fish Commission chose to equip private landowners directly.

Feral hog trapping was one of several programs, and it drew by far the most applications and participants, a clear signal of demand. Landowners received a 75 percent reimbursement on a trap, 45 percent up front and 30 percent after logging their first capture event. Before approval, they had to pass an online training with a score of 80 percent or better, and they use the Quick Capture app to record removals with photos and GPS location, feeding a centralized database.

The results were striking. Beginning the month after launch, private landowners in the program removed more hogs than the agency itself every single month. Most participants reported a decrease in damage on their property, and the program helped many shift away from less effective methods, such as daytime shooting or dog hunting, toward trapping. The minimum property size was 100 acres, but neighbors could apply together as a collaborative to include smaller tracts.

All told, the program put more than 200 traps on the landscape with $1.2 million in funding. Farney said it was well received, praised by state legislators, and likely to return for a second round. Next time, Arkansas plans to use a ranking process instead of first-come, first-served, and to award preference to applicants near others who already have effective traps, creating clusters or hot zones that hit hog density harder.

Update: The application window for the 2026 Conservation Incentive Program is now open. Arkansas landowners who want to put a trap to work on their property can review the requirements and apply through the Arkansas Conservation Incentive Program.

Common Threads and Practical Lessons

A few ideas surfaced across all three programs:

  • Equip the private sector. Government staff cannot cover entire states, so putting effective traps and good information in landowners' hands multiplies the effort.
  • Data makes the case. Tools like the Quick Capture and Hog Track apps and Georgia's Survey123 and ArcGIS dashboards turn field results into the numbers that justify continued funding.
  • Education is the long game. Land pointed out that getting more young people into trapping workshops is key to building the next generation of effective trappers.
  • Coordination beats scattered effort. Because hogs move freely from property to property, sharing data across agencies and landowners is what actually reduces density.

Questions From the Webinar

Are any states using chemical controls or toxicants? Georgia has no registered toxicants for feral hogs. Arkansas recently authorized a warfarin-based bait called Kaput, but it is heavily restricted, limited to approved feeders and to specific counties and time windows, and can only be bought and applied by registered pesticide applicators, with added precautions to protect black bears.

How do these programs help small or fragmented properties? Both states stressed that hogs move from property to property, so neighbors are encouraged to work together. Arkansas lets smaller landowners apply as a collaborative and plans to reward clustered applications, while Georgia's custodians and rental traps serve properties of any size. One 40-acre property, Land noted, caught 25 to 30 hogs in a single year.

Do landowners have to pay for help? Most of the time there is a cost, however the price varies. In Georgia, trap rental carries a small fee, and custodian costs are arranged directly between the landowner and the custodian, with some custodians charging nothing. In Arkansas, the incentive program reimbursed most of the cost of a trap.

Will these programs continue? All signs point to yes. Georgia's task force is continuing, with strong interest in expanding trap rental access, and Arkansas expects new funding for a second round of its incentive program.

Additional Resources

Have a question we did not get to? Email us at hello@pigbrig.com and we will do our best to answer it or point you in the right direction.

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