Feral hogs are known for rooting through forest floors in search of food, but their effects can extend beyond the soil they disturb. By eating seeds, trampling vegetation and altering ground cover, the animals can influence which plants survive to become the next generation of trees. According to a 2009 study published in Forest Ecology and Management , excluding feral hogs from forest plots in East Texas’s Big Thicket National Preserve for seven years increased the abundance of woody plants, particularly species with large seeds.
Seven years without hogs changed the understory
