TWS member earns award for hog eradication

TWS member Brad Pendley has been named employee of the year by the National Wildlife Refuge Association.

A Certified Wildlife Biologist, Pendley is a wildlife biologist at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in Puxico, Missouri, where he faced the challenge of dealing with wild pigs (Sus scrofa). 

Pendley secured $120,000 in grants to fund a program to remove the hogs. Working with the USDA, he developed a trapping program that eliminated some 4,000 hogs from the refuge. 

“Brad literally saved our refuge from the threat of feral hogs through innovative and impactful mitigation methods that eradicated this nuisance and threat to local conservation efforts,” Sabrina Chandler, the Mingo area supervisor, said in a press release.