Feral hogs invaded a NC preserve. These nature lovers started shooting back.

When feral hogs invaded a 1,400-acre tract in southern Davie County, the owners, a Salisbury-based conservation group, came up with what it says is a unique solution: Sign up hunters to settle the score. Three Rivers Land Trust, formerly known as LandTrust for Central North Carolina, has battled hogs since acquiring the farmland between the Yadkin and South Yadkin rivers in 2012. Local people say the hogs were released there illegally a couple of years earlier. The Davie County hogs were ravishing local farmers’ corn and soybean crops, said Travis Morehead, the executive direct of Three Rivers.For years, the land trust has tried to control the hogs by luring them into corrals baited with shelled corn and by leasing hunting rights. Its conservation land manager, Cody Fulk, gets alerts on his cell phone when the hogs have taken the bait. Last year, when its hunting leases expired, the land trust tried a new approach that it says is unique among North Carolina conservation groups. It created a Sportsman Access Programthat lets hunters onto the property nine months of the year.Hunters pay $100 for four “draws” that allow them to hunt in the 200-acre block and week of their choice. About 100 hunters have signed up so far, but the program can accommodate up to 370.