Category: Research

By Tyjaha Steele

Across the United States, there is a battle unfolding between wild pigs and farmers, landowners, and wildlife managers. These fast-breeding animals are an invasive species in North America whose adaptability to different environments has allowed them to thrive in novel areas, while causing extensive ecological and economic damage. Wild pigs in particular harm natural habitats, spread disease, and destroy crops and property as their populations and ranges continue to expand. Scientists are working to evaluate and improve methods for managing wild pig populations to slow their expansion and reduce the costly damage that they cause.  

 Leading this effort is Jim Beasley, a researcher and professor from the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) and Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. In their most recent study, Jim and members of his lab analyzed data from 867 capture events carried out by 31 professional trappers across four southeastern U.S. states. This research evaluated the effectiveness of the three most common trap designs used today to capture wild pigs, corral, drop, and passive net traps, under varying environmental conditions.  

“The USDA estimates that wild pigs cause $2.5 billion in annual damage and control costs to U.S. agriculture while also significantly impacting native habitats and wildlife across their invasive range,” explains Beasley. “While there are many tools for managing wild pigs, trapping is one of the most widespread methods of wild pig control, especially by agencies and wildlife management professionals.” 

 This research examined how each trap type performed across different landscapes and seasons by reviewing factors like capture efficiency, bait usage, and time to first capture. Previous studies on wild pig trapping have often been limited in scope, location, and scale, so this study was designed to provide a comprehensive evaluation of trapping strategies by incorporating data from multiple ecoregions and a robust multi-year dataset. 

“We believed these to be the most important distinguishing factors when choosing a trap type,” states Chuck Taylor, a former SREL graduate student under Beasley and first author on this study. “By including multiple factors that covered the vast majority of concerns when buying or building a wild pig trap, and monitoring those factors over multiple years, and in multiple states, we were able to thoroughly evaluate each trap type and their strengths and weaknesses.” 

The team found that all of the trap types evaluated in this study were highly effective in capturing entire social groups of wild pigs, achieving at least an 88% success rate in removing all targeted individuals in each capture event. Drop traps had the shortest time to a capture event and performed the best during challenging masting seasons, when natural food resources are abundant, providing wild pigs with natural food sources that make bait less effective.  Corral traps and net traps also performed very well, capturing nearly all targeted wild pigs in 2-3 weeks, on average.  Net traps showed the most consistent results across seasons but required slightly more bait due to their passive nature. However, the few differences found between trap types were deemed to be insignificant, and each trap type was highly effective at capturing wild pigs. 

“One important finding was that all evaluated trap types performed similarly and were highly effective in catching and removing entire social groups of pigs. This is important for developing a successful wild pig management program under various conditions because each of these trap types vary in cost, maneuverability, and effort to monitor and maintain,” says Beasley. “This suggests that managers have numerous options for optimizing trapping programs without sacrificing performance depending on local conditions, resources, and wild pig populations within their management areas.” 

Details of the study can be found in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, under the title “Evaluation of common trap types for capturing wild pigs.” The study was authored by Charles R. Taylor, Lauren Buxton, and James C. Beasley.  

By Tyjaha Steele and Katrina Ford

Researchers at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory studied water movement in wetlands and its role in filtering contaminants in the Tims Branch watershed, a riparian wetland on the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina.

“We chose this area specifically to understand how water moves. This allows us to predict how wetlands hold onto contaminants,” explains Daniel Kaplan, a senior research scientist at SREL, associate director of the University of Georgia’s Research Institute, and lead investigator of this study.

The research team collected monthly water samples from rainfall, streams, and groundwater at different sites within the watershed. By analyzing stable isotopes of hydrogen (δ²H) and oxygen (δ¹⁸O), they traced how different water sources mixed over time. Additional measurements were collected and helped determine how groundwater chemistry influenced stream water quality.

The study found that groundwater renewed at 2–4% per day, taking about two to four weeks to mix fully. Groundwater contributed up to 4% of stream water in some areas, while stream water comprised nearly 70% of groundwater in others.

These exchanges shifted seasonally, with groundwater flowing into streams more in winter and stream water seeping into the soil in summer, influencing water quality and contaminate movement.

The movement of water within the environment is a key factor in assessing the distribution of various heavy metals and contaminants, including uranium, throughout a riparian wetland. Effective environmental management is crucial to ensuring the health and safety of the Central Savannah River Area.

“For future work, we hope to utilize this hydrological model with other studies to improve contaminant management and reduce risks to both human and environmental health across the CSRA and DOE Complex,” states Kaplan.

The original study titled, “Hydrological controls of a riparian wetland based on stable isotope data and model simulations,” was published in the journal Isotopes in Environmental and Health Studies (IEHS) and was written by Peter H. Santschi, Chen Xu, Peng Lin, Chris M. Yeager, Pieter Hazenberg, and Daniel I. Kaplan. This work was completed in collaboration with researchers from Texas A&M University, Florida International University, and the Argonne National Laboratory, and the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.