The Cherokee Nation is helping landowners tackle feral hog problems. A $150,000 grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs is being used to develop a new trapping program to help fight the growing wild pig population in Oklahoma.
Feral swine can be found in 70 of the Oklahoma’s 77 counties, reports the Cherokee Phoenix of Tahlequah, Okla. The majority of the feral swine reside across the southern parts of the state. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation maintains they “should not be glamorized in any way.”
Ethan Green, government relations specialist with Cherokee Nation Businesses, said the grant dollars come from the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ invasive species program.
“We submitted to receive $137,000 for our first year to operate. We were actually awarded $150,000,” Green told the Cherokee Phoenix. “With that we bought some traps and some supplies we needed to do the trapping. That’s basically where we’re at right now.”
The trapping program will serve tribal citizens who request help in removing wild hogs. Hogs will be trapped on a citizen’s land and then the hog will be turned over to them, the article said. It’s up to the landowner to take care of the hogs – the program will only provide the trapping service.
The feral hog problem continues to grow across the reservation, Green explained. He has received calls of hogs tearing up cemeteries, tearing up ranchers’ farmland and creating ruts.
Although there is not a specific hog hunting season in Oklahoma, hunters must have an appropriate elk or deer license. Trapping within the reservation will begin soon, likely through CN Natural Resources, Green told the Cherokee Phoenix.
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