Private Landowners' Perspectives on Managing Feral Swine in Arkansas, Louisiana, and East Texas

Abstract Feral swine ( Sus scrofa ) have inflicted extensive damage on private lands throughout the southern United States, especially in the West Gulf Region. Managing feral swine on private lands is increasingly necessary to reduce ecological and economic damage. Management is also becoming increasingly challenging with growing swine populations and the diversity of private ownership and management objectives. To improve feral swine management, we conducted a mail survey of landowners to better understand private landowners’ feral swine management decision‐making in Arkansas, Louisiana, and East Texas, a region that contains over half of the feral swine population in the United States. We documented reported management actions and motivations, described perceived effectiveness of different management strategies, and examined various factors related to landowners’ decisions to manage swine. We used analysis of variance to test differences in swine management and control activities among the 3 states and binary logistic regression to identify factors associated with landowners’ swine management decisions. Shooting and trapping activities were conducted more often than other activities (e.g., fences, repellent usage). Regression results indicated that landowner decisions to manage feral swine were related to sociodemographic characteristics (age, education) and property size, familiarity with and beliefs about feral swine impacts, and perceptions of neighbors and community. These findings offer insights into feral swine management decision‐making and can facilitate the development of incentives, education, and outreach programs that encourage landowners to manage feral swine in the West Gulf Region.