A few years ago a group of eight hunters formed Louisiana Wild Hog Removal LLC to hunt, kill and remove feral hogs from other people’s property.
“We will go where the hogs are — anywhere south of Alexandria,” says Danny Edgar.
Since its founding, the group has added two more members. The company needs a lot of members, explained Edgar, because some invariably have to work when a hunt is on, and it takes a good number of people to pull off an effective hog-removal hunt.
The group is well equipped. Egar, Dugas, Mire, Fortier, Aucoin and Neuville own airboats. Fortier also owns a helicopter, extremely useful for spotting hogs and getting replacement parts to stranded airboats.
Everyone owns boats with outboards, and all have all terrain vehicles.
Seven members also own hog dogs. Asked how many dogs he owns, Edgar grinned self-consciously.
“Oh, my gosh, my dog-food bill is more than my grocery bill,” he said. “Let’s see — I have five Plott and cur dogs, and three pit and American pit catch dogs. We have about 25 dogs total.”
The group charges nothing for their services, doing it for the pleasure and passion of the hunt.
But there are some stipulations. The tract of land needs to be large enough to run dogs on, unless the adjacent landowners are cooperative.
“When you get after a hog with dogs, you have to get them,” he explained.
“Large enough” was defined as 500 acres in a marsh or 1,000 acres in a swamp.
“We even hunt cypress swamps,” he chuckled. “It’s where we all grew up in and are most at home, but is the toughest to hunt. You can’t use airboats, and it is too soft to walk.”
Their specialty is hog removal from coastal marshes, but they will hunt upland timber where they can walk or use ATVs.
Leaseholders or property owners interested in Louisiana Wild Hog Removal’s services may contact Daniel Edgar (337-224-9992) or Calen Mire (337-578-9924).
The group is most active in hog removal from the end of deer season until it gets hot in June, although they will do some hunting later.
