Delighted & concerned

[Rad]

I was delighted in February to see on camera a hog in my garden and started to leave out water and (underneath a plastic box) cat food for the hog. I was even more delighted to see on camera that the hog was using the nest box in my garden. I’m concerned though, as this time last year, I had 2 hogs sleeping in my garden and up to 3 other hogs visiting the garden. So far, this year I’ve seen only the one hog. I found evidence last May of a fox predating at least 1 hog and wonder if the fox has impacted the local hog population. Has anyone else noticed a decline in their hog visitors? Rad

[Nic]

Hi Rad

I can understand your concern. Unfortunately some foxes once they learn how to kill a hog will continue to kill others. So it is possible it could have impacted the population in the area to some extent. But having said that, there are other potential reasons why the hogs aren’t visiting your garden – i.e. someone else nearby has started feeding, the route to your garden could have been blocked/disturbed (bearing in mind that hogs can travel up to 2 miles a night, it could be anywhere on their normal route), etc.

I have only seen a hog once, here, so far this year, which is very unusual as I would normally expect to be seeing several, visiting nightly, by now. I think it is entirely possible that the alternative potential reasons I suggested above could be the reason. I am hopeful, some more will turn up soon.

It might also depend a bit on whether you are in a rural or urban/suburban location. Hog populations in rural areas have apparently not been doing as well as in urban/suburban areas – where they have come to rely on our gardens to find some decent habitat – which shows how important it is that we all do our best to make our gardens as wildlife friendly as possible.

But if there is one hog around it is likely there are more, so fingers crossed you get some more visitors soon. Good luck.

[Author]

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