By PAUL DAVIS
Outdoors Editor
WAPPAPELLO, Mo. -- Much like the Missouri Department of Conservation did last year, the St. Louis District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has joined its Kansas City District and initiated a ban on feral hog hunting on its properties.
That means hunters no longer are allowed to kill feral hogs on Corps lands around Wappapello Lake. Instead, officials would like those with hog sightings to report them by calling 573-522-4115, extension 3296, or online at mdc.mo.gov/feralhog.
"We started the regulation in the fall of 2016 after receiving a letter from the director of the Missouri Department of Conservation asking the St. Louis District to also implement a regulation that prohibits the take of feral hogs," said Wappapello ranger Jeremy Jackson, "and we have been waiting for things to get approved."
The St. Louis District is part of a larger group of state, federal and private land managers who are working together to eradicate feral hogs.
The Corps, Jackson said, has been trapping hogs around the lake for years, but hunters have, many times, pushed the pigs away from those areas after considerable work had been done to capture them.
"Sometimes we spend weeks setting up bait sites and traps," he said, "and we've had hunters come right in and scatter the hogs."
The hog-hunting ban, he said, should help improve trapping success, which, Jackson said, already is the most effective method for eliminating large numbers of hogs.
"We've caught, 13, 16, even 19 in one swoop," he said. "You can't do that with hunting. Trapping is the only way to accomplish this."
In fact, Jackson said, hog hunting has done very little to eliminate hogs on Corps property.
"It hasn't really done anything to help. It's just been a free-for-all, and feral hog numbers seem only to be increasing. As everyone already knows, they compete directly with native wildlife, and we want to do everything we can to protect native species," he said.
Jackson said he expects some backlash from the new regulation.
"We anticipate some feedback from the public," he said, "and as a hunter, I totally get it."
Nobody wants to see any rights taken away, Jackson said, but "we just have to be on opposite sides of the issue. We owe ourselves the opportunity to give it a try."
He added Corps personnel "would appreciate the participation of the public by reporting all feral hog sightings," and for them to "help spread the word about the hunting ban, as it is not our intent to write a bunch of tickets. We would rather band together to eradicate this destructive pest."
The ban is effective immediately, and if you have questions about it, call Wappapello Lake's project office at 573-222-8562.
At nearby Clearwater Lake, which is part of the Corps' Little Rock District, no hog-hunting ban has been imposed, according to Deputy Operations Manager Fred Esser, though he said it could happen in the future.