Weekly pig report: New World Screwworm risk complicated by feral swine problem

Weekly pig report: New World Screwworm risk complicated by feral swine problem

With an estimated population of 6 million in the US, feral swine are likely to make New World Screwworm eradication efforts much more difficult and costly

August lean hog futures on Wednesday fell $2.425 to $100.675, near the daily low and hit a two-week low. The lean hog futures market saw heavy profit-taking pressure today after prices hit a nine-week high on Tuesday. A price uptrend on the daily bar chart is now in jeopardy as bulls may have run out of gas. Steadily rising cash hog prices will limit selling interest in futures in the near term. The latest CME lean hog index is up 12 cents to $98.35. Thursday’s projected CME index price is up another 10 cents at $98.45. The national direct five-day rolling average cash hog price quote for today is $101.08. The USDA’s noon pork report today showed cutout value was down $1.34 at $105.57, led by losses in bellies. Movement at midday was 157.85 loads. August lean hog futures see a price uptrend firmly in place on the daily bar chart. The next upside price objective for the hog bulls is to close August futures prices above solid chart resistance at $106.00. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at $98.00. First resistance is seen at $102.00 and then at this week’s high of $103.35. First support is seen at $100.00 and then at $99.00.

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The six-million-hog problem

Feral swine now overrun at least 35 US states and cost agriculture billions a year — and a flesh-eating parasite now creeping inside the border could turn the nation’s wild-hog glut into a far more dangerous threat.

Wild pigs have become one of the most destructive invasive species in North America. An estimated six million feral swine now range across at least 35 US states, rooting up farmland, fouling water, spreading disease and breeding faster than hunters, trappers and federal crews can cull them. In 2026 a second menace arrived: the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite eradicated from the United States nearly 60 years ago, turned up again in American livestock — and the country’s sprawling, unmanaged hog population is exactly the kind of hidden host that could make it far harder to stamp out a second time.

“If screwworm were to gain a foothold in wildlife, including feral hogs, eradication would become exponentially harder.” — Tracy Tomascik, Texas Farm Bureau

How many are there — and where

Nailing down an exact count is impossible; feral hogs are secretive, nocturnal and constantly on the move. The working figure used by most researchers and USDA is roughly six million animals nationwide, though some state-by-state tallies push the total higher. What is not in dispute is the concentration: Texas alone is home to an estimated three million wild hogs — about half the country’s population — followed by Oklahoma, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida.

The geography is also changing. As recently as the early 1980s, feral swine were largely a problem of a few southern states. USDA now reports established populations in at least 35 states, from California and Hawaii to Michigan and the mid-Atlantic. Much of that spread was not natural: hogs were trapped and hauled across state lines and released to create new hunting opportunities, seeding fresh infestations far from the original range. The federal control program has since pushed the number of infested states back from its peak, but the animals remain entrenched across the South and are probing northward.

Why they keep multiplying

Feral hogs are, biologically, built to boom. Sows can reach breeding age at six to eight months and produce one to two litters a year, averaging five to six piglets each. In good conditions a population can effectively double in a matter of months. They are omnivores that will eat almost anything, they tolerate a wide range of climates and habitats, and outside of the occasional large predator they have virtually no natural check on their numbers in the United States. Biologists estimate that landowners must remove roughly two-thirds of a local population every single year just to keep it from growing — a bar that hunting and casual trapping rarely clear.

The math of a “feral swine bomb.” Left unchecked, a single pair can balloon into scores of animals within a few years; only aggressive, sustained removal holds a population flat. Illustrative model based on the ~66–70% annual removal biologists say is required.

Feral hogs move in family groups called “sounders,” and coloration ranges from grizzled gray to black to red-brown, as in this trio. High reproductive rates and early maturity let sounders rebuild quickly after culls.

Why they are so hard to stop

Fast reproduction is only half of it — the other half is that hogs are remarkably hard to catch. Feral hogs are intelligent and quickly learn to avoid danger: shoot at a sounder and the survivors turn nocturnal, scatter and grow trap-shy, which can splinter one group into several. Recreational hunting, once seen as a solution, can actually make things worse by dispersing animals and creating a financial incentive to move and release live hogs. Their range is vast and often spans private land, public land and rugged country where control is difficult. And the toolbox is limited: a toxic bait based on sodium nitrite has shown promise but remains tangled in years of testing and federal registration, leaving trapping, aerial gunning and snaring as the main options.

The damage those hogs do is why the effort matters. USDA puts feral swine damage and control costs at about $2.5 billion a year, and a 2026 Natural Resources Conservation Service estimate runs as high as $3.4 billion. They root up crops and pasture, prey on lambs, kids and calves, foul water sources, collide with vehicles, destroy wildlife habitat and can carry more than 30 diseases and parasites that threaten livestock, wildlife and people.

National damage estimates vary by scope, but even the narrowest run into the hundreds of millions; a 13-state survey found Texas farmers alone absorbing $871 million in losses. Sources: USDA APHIS; USDA NRCS (2026); American Farm Bureau Federation.

A hog wallow and rooting damage in a pasture. Searching for roots, grubs, water and mud, feral swine churn up fields, pastures and levees — ruining forage, eroding soil and fouling water.

A common question — can you eat it

Can you eat it? Yes — feral hog is edible and widely eaten; it is the same species as farm pork, just leaner and gamier. The catch is disease. Feral swine are the main US wildlife reservoir for swine brucellosis (Brucella suis), and they can also carry trichinellosis, hepatitis E, toxoplasmosis and tularemia.

Handle with care. Wildlife agencies advise hunters to wear latex or rubber gloves and eye protection when field-dressing hogs — most human brucellosis infections come from handling blood and organs, not from the meat itself — and to cook the meat thoroughly, to an internal temperature of at least 160–170°F, which destroys these pathogens. Two absolute rules: never eat an animal killed with a toxicant such as sodium-nitrite bait, or one showing the open, infested wounds that screwworm leaves behind.

What is being done

The centerpiece of the federal response is USDA APHIS’s National Feral Swine Damage Management Program, launched in 2014 to coordinate control across state lines. The agency credits the program with slowing the invasion and cutting the number of states with established populations. On the ground, the workhorse tactic is whole-sounder trapping — using bait, cameras and remote-triggered corral traps to capture an entire family group at once, rather than picking off a few animals and scattering the rest — supplemented by aerial gunning in open country.

Money is following the problem. In July 2026 USDA announced $35 million in new partnership funding, part of a roughly $105 million