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Wild Pigs Found Bait 33 Hours Faster in Their Most-used Areas; Females Came Later After Adult Males Visited First

Feral hogs on a ranch in Albany, Texas
Research · Behaviour

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) found experimental bait sites substantially faster when the bait was placed in parts of their home ranges they already used intensively. In 325 bait-site trials involving 52 GPS-collared animals in South Carolina, USA, pigs visited 30.6% more sites and reached them 33.4 hours sooner when bait was placed in concentrated-use areas rather than near the outer edge of their home ranges.

The experiments were conducted at the Savannah River Site near Aiken from June 2023 to November 2024. Researchers varied where bait was placed, whether corn was laid in a pile or trail, whether a scent lure was added and whether other wild pigs reached the site before the collared target animal. Distance from the pig to the bait when it was deployed, the part of the home range in which it was placed and prior visits by other pigs had the strongest influence on whether the target animal found the site. For every additional 100 metres between a pig and the bait at deployment, detection took about 2.6 hours longer, showing that starting distance strongly influenced how quickly the site was found.

Social interactions were especially clear for females. When an adult male had visited first, females visited 28.3% fewer bait sites and took 118.9 hours longer to find them than when no adult male arrived beforehand. The researchers interpret this as possible exclusion or avoidance behaviour. Across the full experiment, target pigs were also less likely to locate sites that another pig from a different social group had visited before them.

Adding a scent lure or changing the bait from a pile to a trail did not significantly improve visitation. The study therefore found that placement relative to the animals’ existing space use was more important than these presentation methods, while social context could further alter whether and when individual pigs approached bait.

Sources and image credit

  1. Brewer, S. M., Snow, N. P., & Beasley, J. C. (2026). Proximity to bait and social interactions influence individual wild pig (Sus scrofa) visitation at bait sites. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 90(5), e70220. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.70220Primary peer-reviewed article first published 7 May 2026. Researchers conducted 325 experimental bait-site replicates on 52 GPS-collared wild pigs at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina. Pigs visited 30.6% more sites and arrived 33.4 hours faster when bait was placed in concentrated-use areas rather than home-range peripheries. Females visited 28.3% fewer sites and took 118.9 hours longer when an adult male had visited first. Scent lure and pile-versus-trail bait presentation did not significantly influence visitation.

Image: USDA NRCS Texas — feral hogs at Stasney's Cook Ranch in Albany, Texas, photographed 5 May 2009; representative U.S. feral swine, not animals from the South Carolina study. Source: Wikimedia Commons. · Public domain (U.S. Government) · Source

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