DB: Feral Hogs Killed a Texas Woman. Experts Say They Are Coming for America.

[China]

'Full hog': Edmonton could become first Canadian city with permanent wild pigs if city is unprepared, expert warns

 

Edmonton could be the first city in Canada where invasive and destructive feral pigs become a permanent fixture if the creatures are allowed to go hog wild and the city is unprepared, an expert warns.

Wild pigs are spreading out of control across the prairies, many living in central Alberta, and could become embedded in Edmonton’s river valley without intervention, according to University of Saskatchewan professor Ryan Brook, who has been researching the animals for more than a decade. No pigs have been spotted in Edmonton yet — although there was a sighting east of the city in Ardrossan last week, and they’ve appeared just southeast and west of city limits in recent years, Brook’s research has found. A group, called a sounder, was also found in Elk Island National Park in 2021.

Referring to them as “an ecological trainwreck,” if they find their way to the river valley — with access to water and forest cover, it’s an ideal habitat — wild pigs would cause “absolute destruction,” Brook said in a recent interview.

 

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[justice98]

I can't even imagine stepping outside your house to find a big ass feral hog going through your trash.  

[skinsmarydu]

15 minutes ago, justice98 said:

I can't even imagine stepping outside your house to find a big ass feral hog going through your trash.  

Or cleaning up the mess left behind.  🤬

[China]

After 726 feral hogs culled on farm, Missouri man says 'I didn't retire to become a pig trapper'

 

Don Kory owns 600 acres on either side of Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. What was supposed to be a farm to enjoy retirement quickly turned into a nightmare 15 years ago.

The culprit? Feral hogs.

 

"They destroy everything, literally, destroy everything," Kory said.

 

Kory used to tend gardens on his farm. While others may lament about rabbits, squirrels or deer making off with a few vegetables, Kory said hogs would remake the land.

 

"You know what happens when the pigs come in?" Kory asked. "The whole entire garden is destroyed and plowed under in one night. We just gave up on gardens because you just couldn't have them anymore."

 

Kory called the Missouri Feral Hog Elimination Partnership and the Department of Conservation to tell them there were pigs on his property.

 

"If somebody would have told me I'm just gonna take 726 pigs off my property, I'd told them they were nuts," Kory said. "But, since we started, that's how many I've taken off there."

 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Kory started gardening again. He built a corral and laid fencing to keep the feral hogs out.

 

The Missouri Feral Hog Elimination Partnership includes more than 15 federal and state agencies along with agriculture and conservation organizations. 

 

The partnership killed 9,857 feral hogs in 2021, bringing the total number of hogs killed since 2016 to more than 54,000. For 2019, 10,495 hogs were killed and 12,635 in 2020. The partnership employs 10 full-time trappers along with educators through the University of Missouri's Extension Program.

 

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[China]

On 5/31/2020 at 10:38 PM, China said:

At least the ones in this country aren't all coked up like the ones in Italy...

 

Feral Pigs Eat And Destroy $22K Worth Of Cocaine Hidden In Italian Forest

 

Hiding a stash of cocaine worth $22,000 in the woods might not have been the dumbest idea this suspected gang of drug dealers came up with, but it was certainly the least effective. According to Newsweek, a horde of wild boars ruthlessly destroyed it with utter indifference.

 

This violent reclamation by Mother Nature was discovered after police wiretapped members of the gang and overheard them complaining about the damage to their product. Arresting the three Albanian suspects and one Italian suspect thereafter was rather swift.

 

According to The Local, the animals ripped into a sealed package of cocaine and proceeded to litter the nearby woodlands with its powdery contents.

 

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Rome residents impose curfew after spate of wild boar attacks

 

Residents in several neighbourhoods in northern Rome have imposed a nightly “curfew” after a spate of attacks by wild boar, which for years have roamed the Italian capital.

 

In the most recent encounter, a woman said a boar “was on top of my head” after she was pushed to the ground during an attack on Sunday night. The incident prompted exasperated residents of Balduina and six other districts to impose an 8.30pm curfew.

 

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Do they really think the boars are going to obey a curfew?

[China]

Hog Problem Continues at Dallas Cemetery

 

elatives with loved ones in a Dallas cemetery complain wild hogs are still damaging graves despite more than a year of efforts to contain the hogs.

 

Lincoln Memorial Cemetery is on Murdock Road near Interstate 20 in far Southeast Dallas along the Trinity River.

 

NBC 5 first heard complaints from relatives about hog damage in April 2021.

 

Earline Caldwell said the graves of her three sons who died within months a few years ago have new damage that she first noticedthis past April.

 

“It’s very heartbreaking, my sons. It’s hard for me to talk about them. It’s even harder for me to go out to the cemetery and see them in a place I thought would be comfortable,” she said.

 

In April 2021, volunteers with the nonprofit group “Hogs for A Cause Texas” set up traps at the cemetery.

 

A month later, they had caught a dozen hogs. The meat was donated to veterans.

 

But their traps and camera equipment were stolen twice.

 

Chris Matthews with the group said the cemetery agreed to reimburse the cost of lost equipment but losses became too great for volunteers to continue the effort.

 

Matthews said another problem at Lincoln Memorial is the lack of fences to keep hogs from wandering up from the Trinity River.

 

Dallas City Councilman Tennell Atkins who represents the neighborhood visited the cemetery Friday.

 

“I do see the holes and it looks like hogs have been doing that. We do know there is an issue here but we’re going to try to resolve the issue,” Atkins said. “I don't want to play the blame game. We know it doesn't have a fence. We know it's by the Trinity River. But, the point is, we've got to put closure to this.”

 

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[China]

Population Explosion of Canadian “Super Pigs” Could Spread Into the Northern U.S.

 

The U.S. may soon have a new wild pig problem. Until now, the invasive species has largely proliferated in warm places like the southeast, Texas, and California. But in recent years, invasive pigs have started thriving in Canada and may spread into North Dakota, Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota.

 

According to Dr. Ryan Brook, who leads the University of Saskatchewan’s Canadian Wild Pig Research Project, Canada’s wild pig problem is relatively new. “The U.S. has a 400-plus year history with invasive wild pigs, but we didn’t have any here until the early 1980s,” he says. “There was a big push to diversify agriculture with species like wild boards and ostriches. Wild boars were brought in from Europe to be raised on farms across Canada.”

 

Most of those pigs were kept on meat farms, but some were used on high-fence hunting preserves. Many farmers and ranchers soon crossbred the wild boars with domestic pigs. According to Brook, the hybridization resulted in bigger “super pigs” that could survive in cold climates. “For surviving in cold winters, one of the rules of ecology is: the bigger the better,” he says. “Larger body animals survive the cold better and have better reproduction in those conditions.”

 

In the early 2000s, the market for farmed boars dropped out in Canada. Some escaped from their enclosures and others were let free without anyone to sell them to. In less than 20 years, the wild—or feral—population exploded, in part due to the species’ extraordinarily high reproductive rate. Wild boars now roam approximately 620,000 square miles in Canada, primarily in the Prairie Provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta.

 

 

“That they can survive in such a cold climate is one of the big surprises of this issue. The Prairie Provinces are where we have the coldest winters in Canada except for the very far north,” says Brook. “One of the things they do to survive is tunnel under the snow. They go into a cattail marsh and channel into the soft snow and cut nests in the cattails. If you go early in the morning on a cold day, you can actually see steam pouring out the top of the nests.”

 

For native species, the issue is dire. “Wild hogs feed on anything. They gobble up tons and tons of goslings and ducklings in the spring. They can take down a whitetail deer, even an adult,” says Brook. “Originally, it was like ‘wow, this is something we can hunt.’ But it’s become clear that they’re threatening our whitetail deer, elk, and especially, waterfowl. Not to mention the crop damage. The downsides outweigh any benefit wild hogs may have as a huntable species.”

 

And unfortunately, the issue may soon spread into the Northern U.S. “We have already documented pig occurrences less than 10 miles from the U.S. border. Quite honestly, I think there have already been some in Manitoba going into North Dakota for the last 5 or 6 years,” says Brook. “There is no physical, biological boundary at the U.S.-Canada border. There is hardly any kind of fencing to speak of. There’s a real risk of pigs moving south into the U.S.”

 

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