Jim Downey was a little teed off last year by the damage done to the golf course near Beausejour, Man.
Wild boars, scrounging for food, tore trenches through the fairways of the Mars Sand Hills golf course, which cost thousands of dollars to repair, said Downey.
“We fixed it as fast as we could and tried not to get too upset about it.”
The wild boars, escapees from a farm, continued to roam the countryside this winter, but their numbers shrank in January.
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Under the guidance of the department of natural resources, an effort is under way to combat the problem near Beausejour. The hogs are considered a menace to farmers’ crops and a threat to the Mars Hills wildlife management area.
“Once (the wild boars) get in the wild, it takes years and years to catch them all,” said Downey, not to be confused with the Tory MLA of the same name. “They’re just all over the place.”
As of March 9, Downey said close to 40 wild boars had been removed in an area surrounding the golf course. As many as a dozen are still loose.
The province hopes new legislation will help it win the battle against wild boars running wild in Manitoba and it could be in place by spring, said Ken Rebizant, problem wildlife biologist with natural resources.
“We have reports of 17 different locations of escaped wild boar in the province. We don’t want the problem to get any larger than it is right now.”
The latest estimate suggests there are 300 wild boars at large in the province. The animals are accused of rooting up wildlife habitat, damaging sensitive ecosystems, ransacking gardens and crops and chasing people and livestock.
“When sows have little ones, they’re very protective of them,” Rebizant said. “They’re not afraid of attacking humans.”
The proposed legislation takes a tough stance. It would allow natural resources to set up control areas where officers could snare, trap or shoot the animals.
Big game hunters would also be allowed to shoot wild boars, although they could not be shot on private land without permission from the landowner.
There is no planned limit on the number of escaped wild boars that could be shot. It is expected hunters who shoot the animals would butcher them for meat.
“It’s delicious,” said Rebizant, describing wild boar meat.
In municipalities where escaped wild boars are at large, local residents would be allowed to shoot them without a licence or permit. However, non-residents would need written permission from the municipality.
“They don’t want 200 people out there shooting wild boars at various times of the year.”
Rebizant estimates that wild boar farms in Manitoba host about 2,000 animals. That number was once as high as 12,000.
Under the new legislation, anyone wanting to import the wild boars to Manitoba would need approval from natural resources. A farmer would be required to have pens that satisfy standards set by Manitoba’s agriculture department.
“It’s proper fencing,” Rebizant said. “That’s the secret.”
The new legislation would also put the onus on the farmer to capture any wild boars that escape.
