Farmers in rural Queensland are hoping half a million dollars will be enough to get a handle on the devastation caused by feral pigs.

With current estimates saying around 24 million pigs run rampant throughout 40 per cent of the country, farmers have a huge task trying to control the tusked bandits.

The environmental damage caused by wild pigs is difficult to overestimate; their hooves destroy vegetation and farmland, they knock down fences, kill native wildlife and farm stock, contaminate and can even re-route waterways by wallowing in mud.

Previous campaigns to control their numbers have employed fencing, trapping, shooting and baiting the animals. The latest funds will be offered for professional hunters to open fire on the feral hogs, including $90,000 to be spent on a helicopter assault against pigs in the Whitsunday Region. The funds are part the Everyone's Environment grants program.

Craig Alison from South West Natural Resource Management says extended dry conditions are forcing pigs to concentrate on dwindling water supplies.

“Seeing it's so dry all the feral pigs are retreating into some of the last remaining waterholes and so the total grazing pressure on those areas is extreme,” Alison said.

“Most of the critical drought refuge areas are wetlands... lakes or isolated waterholes so you have a lot of native animals as well relying on those waterholes,”

“The pigs wallow in the river area so the fish don't like it.”

State Environment Minister Andrew Powell says ocean-dwelling animals such as turtles are impacted by the rampaging boars as well.

“The importance of removing those feral pigs is that the pigs get into the turtle hutches, the nesting here on the beach, and get stuck into the eggs,” he said

“If we can get rid of the pigs then we can make sure more sustainable outcomes for those turtles that are nesting here on the beach.”

Funds from the Everyone's Environment grants program have gone to a huge number of worth-while projects so far, with the program providing $3.4 million for 83 projects in its second round.

Applications for the third round open in 2014; more information is available from the Queensland Department of Environmental and Heritage Protection.