It may take more than a bounty on the hundreds of wild boars in a central Alberta county to control the wily creatures.
Since the $50 bounty was implemented this spring, only a dozen pairs of ears have been brought to the Agriculture Service Board office.
“Obviously it’s not very effective,” said agriculture fieldman Allan Deu-tsch with Lac Ste. Anne County. He estimates there are several hundred wild boars wandering the county northeast of Edmonton.
“They’re quite clever,” said Deutsch.
As soon as local farmers start hunting, the animals become nocturnal and come out at night when hunting is illegal.
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The animals, which are believed to have escaped from area farms a few years ago, have become a problem, rooting through bales and digging up swaths laying in the field.
Geoff Thompson of Sangudo said a group of wild boars rooted through his green feed bales two winters ago, ruining them for his cattle.
Those kinds of complaints from farmers to their local MLA spurred the provincial government to initiate the $20,000 Wild Boar Control Policy Pilot Project in an effort to reduce the numbers.
“The money has hardly been used at all,” said Deutsch.
The county built a special wild boar trap, but it hasn’t caught a single animal.
In the summer when feed is plentiful the animals are rarely seen, but in winter when feed is short the animals move into farmyards and fields.
“They can ruin about 10 acres of land in a short period,” Deutsch said.
Wild boar were introduced to Can-ada a few years ago as a farm diversification venture, with mixed success. When some animals escaped, few people thought they would be able to survive the tough Canadian winters.
Deutsch said the animals adapted well by burrowing into muskeg and living in willow thickets. With no natural predators, he compares them to rabbits in Australia and New Zealand, whose populations exploded into plague proportions.
