Feral hogs in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma account for over $61 million in damages per year

Feral hogs continue to reshape landscapes and livelihoods across western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma as populations expand and damage mounts in border counties and beyond. These invasive animals, present in every Arkansas county with an estimated 200,000 statewide and far higher numbers in Oklahoma, form family groups known as sounders that root up pastures, destroy crops, foul streams, and compete with native wildlife.

The origins of feral hogs in Arkansas and neighboring areas trace back to domestic swine first brought to the New World by Spanish explorers. Christopher Columbus introduced pigs in 1493, and Hernando de Soto’s expedition in the 1540s carried hundreds of them through the Southeast, including parts of present-day Arkansas.

Many of those animals escaped or were left behind, and later European settlers continued the practice of free ranging their hogs in the woods to forage on mast.

Over generations, those escaped domestic pigs established self-sustaining populations. Beginning in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Eurasian or Russian wild boar were imported and released into hunting preserves. Escapes from those enclosures allowed interbreeding with existing feral domestic stock, creating the mixed hybrid animals common today.

In Arkansas, the animals persisted for centuries mainly in southern bottomland thickets, while free-ranging husbandry remained common into the mid-twentieth century until fencing laws and changing farming practices reduced that tradition.

Although small herds of feral hogs have lived in parts of Arkansas for generations and even centuries, they were not a widespread statewide problem until relatively recent decades. By the late 1970s populations were limited to only about four percent of the state and were considered to be declining.

The dramatic expansion began in the 1990s and continued into the 2000s, driven largely by illegal releases of animals for sport hunting. Those human-assisted movements, combined with the hogs’ high reproductive rate, allowed them to spread into every Arkansas county and to build the large numbers now estimated at around 200,000.

Similar patterns of long-term local presence followed by rapid modern expansion occurred across eastern Oklahoma and much of the South.

DNA analysis has provided clear answers about the makeup and spread of these populations. Genetic studies using single-nucleotide polymorphisms and mitochondrial markers show that the vast majority of feral swine in the United States, including those in Arkansas and Oklahoma, are hybrids.

Their ancestry is dominated by Western heritage breeds of domestic pig mixed with European wild boar lineages. The genetic signatures also reveal that the rapid range expansion of the past thirty to forty years resulted mainly from secondary introductions of already-admixed animals moved by people rather than from pure domestic escapes or pure wild-boar releases.

Researchers have developed tests that can distinguish hybrid feral swine from pure domestic pigs, tools that help law enforcement detect illegal transport and support management decisions.

In Arkansas, the annual toll reaches 30$ to 41$ million in losses to agriculture, pastures, forests, and habitat. Eastern Oklahoma counties including Latimer, Haskell, Le Flore, and McCurtain report similar destruction, with individual properties recording thousands of dollars in rooting damage to cattle pastures and hayfields that later required the removal of dozens or even hundreds of animals.

While University of Arkansas Razorbacks fans fill stadiums with loud "Go Hogs" chants in support of their beloved teams, many residents facing the daily reality of feral hogs wish for precisely the opposite outcome when it comes to these invasive animals.

In the Arkansas River Valley counties of Logan, Sebastian, Yell, and nearby Pope the problem hit hard enough to draw federal pilot funding. Landowners there watched sounders tear through fields overnight, leave wallows that eroded soil, and introduce risks of diseases such as brucellosis and pseudorabies that can pass to livestock and occasionally people.

Farther north in the Ozarks, Newton, Boone, and Madison counties saw hogs disturb forest understories, prey on turkey nests and fawns, and increase sedimentation in sensitive waterways including those feeding the Buffalo National River. Montgomery County in the Ouachitas faced parallel pressures on timber and pasture.

Across the state line the same pattern holds. Oklahoma Wildlife Services crews have verified repeated calls from Latimer and Haskell producers describing rooted pastures valued at $1,500 to $5,000 dollars per incident, followed by trapping that removed 7 to 174 hogs from single properties.

The battle to contain the animals has intensified through coordinated state and federal work. Arkansas created a Feral Hog Eradication Task Force that partners the Game and Fish Commission, Department of Agriculture, USDA Wildlife Services, and local conservation districts. A major USDA Feral Swine Control Project focused on 12 counties across four regions, including the West Arkansas River Valley.

By 2024, the effort had assisted more than 480 properties covering roughly 500,000 acres and removed more than 13,000 hogs, nearly 4,500 of them by conservation district trappers. Landowners reported more than $2.5 million in prior damages that were largely avoided once whole-sounder trapping took hold.

One Yell County producer described a sharp drop after crews targeted entire groups on his land and neighboring tracts. Additional cost-share programs reimbursed landowners for traps and produced another 6,693 removals across 52 counties, protecting more than 900,000 acres.

Aerial operations and ground trapping remain central tools because sport hunting alone rarely removes the 66 percent of a population needed each year simply to keep numbers stable.

Oklahoma relies heavily on USDA Wildlife Services for rapid response. Crews place remote-camera traps after verifying damage, pre-bait sites, and remove sounders. In eastern counties the work is ongoing and often yields high numbers of animals per property.

Both states classify the hogs as a public nuisance and allow landowners to trap or shoot them year-round on private land with few restrictions. Transporting live animals is illegal in Arkansas, a measure meant to stop the illegal releases that helped drive the post-1990s explosion.

Remedies now in use and expanding include continued whole-sounder trapping, greater staffing for Wildlife Services, landowner incentive programs, and targeted aerial removal in hard-to-reach terrain. Officials are exploring additional tools such as toxic baits under strict geographic and seasonal limits and research into sterilants. Sustained pressure across property lines remains essential because hogs move freely along river corridors and forest edges that cross the Arkansas-Oklahoma border.

Local success stories show that coordinated trapping can drive numbers down and restore the ability to grow crops or graze cattle in previously ruined fields. Without that persistence, however, the animals’ rapid reproduction will quickly erase gains.

Agencies stress that every landowner who participates strengthens the collective effort to keep feral hogs from dominating more of the region’s farms, forests, and waterways.