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The primary focus of the project has been to document and describe the extent to which matriarchial social groups, or sounders, exhibit territorial behavior. Our aim has been to exploit this life history characteristic, to the extent that it occurs, in effort to develop more effective methods for controlling feral pig populations. As an adjunct to our primary objective, we've focused on examining what constitutes a sounder at any given point in time and how this definition changes over time. We've also worked to refine methods for estimating the size of feral pigs populations as well as techniques used to effectively and efficiently trap and tag or remove whole sounders. Funding for the project has been provided by the Department of Defense through the Fort Benning Natural Resources Branch.

The main team consists of Rob Holtfreter and Brian Williams, graduate students, Gregory Brooks and Thomas McMeans as technicians, and Thomas Hess as our comic relief and primary volunteer for the past 3 years. Tom Hess is a junior and Tom McMeans, Brian and Greg are all AU graduates in Wildlife Science. Our primary contact at Fort Benning is Roderick Mark Thornton--who is also an AU graduate and an Endangered Species Biologist. Dr. Steve Ditchkoff is our advisor, but Dr. Barry Grand, Dr. Jim Armstrong, Dr. Todd Steury, and Dr. Peng Zeng are all involved as committee members.