Feral Hog Fidelity to Home Range After Exposure to Supplemental Feed

Abstract

Thirteen feral hogs were captured on the King Ranch in South Texas and fitted with radio transmitters in order to test if their movements were based on food availability. Supplemental feed was introduced into the range of some animals after they were tracked for a period of time with no feed. Six sows and a boar yielded enough radio locations to calculate home range size. The average home range size calculated by the minimum convex poly-gon method for unsupplemented sows was 143% of that for supplemented sows.Two sows exhibited a decrease of 67% in their average core areas after exposure to feed. Supplemented animals spent a great deal of time in the vicinity of feeding sites but did not totally abandon their previous home range.