Simon Cleal was on the hunt last week for wild boar.
He was crisscrossing the Prairies to learn more about the wild boar industry and the number of animals raised here. He represents a company that wants to buy about 500 head per month for export to the United States. That demand might grow.
Southern Wild Game Inc., a Texas-based company, slaughters 50,000 to 100,000 wild boar each year. Most of the meat is processed and sold in the U.S. and Europe.
The company now is looking northward, hopeful that its presence might stir growth in Western Canada’s wild boar industry.
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Cleal described his visit as a “fact-finding mission.” What he found, he said, was an industry uncertain about its future.
“There’s a fear of no market,” Cleal said. “It sort of plays in the back of everyone’s mind.
“They’re just not sure what to do, whether to really kick it in the pants or sit back and see what happens in another year.”
James Spiers is among those uncertain of the industry future. Eighteen months ago he had as many as 250 wild boar on his farm. He is now down to 50 head and only a dozen of those are breeding stock.
“The market has been rather haphazard,” said Spiers, who also runs a dairy at his farm near Gladstone, Man.
Spiers hopes Southern Wild Game can establish a long-term market for wild boar from Western Canada. He sells some of his animals to Terry Hillis of Brandon, Man., who was enlisted this month as a buying agent for Southern Wild Game.
Cleal said Southern Wild Game wants to have three buying stations, one in each of the prairie provinces. Producers will be paid when the animals are delivered and weighed.
The Texas company also plans to research the feeding methods of producers on the Prairies. Cleal suspects too much money is going into feed.
“The amount of money being poured down the hogs’ throats is too high for what we can afford to pay.”
He said last week that the company will be offering 85 cents per pound when it begins buying in Western Canada. That’s the premium price for hogs weighing at least 150 pounds and with no more than a half-inch of back fat. It will not accept hogs with more than three-quarters of an inch of back fat.
“That’s a prime price for a prime hog,” Cleal said.
Can’t meet price
But Phil Spring of the Interlake Wild Boar Co-op in Manitoba thinks Southern Wild Game may have a tough time getting livestock. Spring said members of the co-op need $1.10 per lb. to break even on their hogs, a price that Southern Wild Game will not attempt to match.
Most of the wild boar raised in Canada gets sold into the U.S. hunt market. Prices per lb. have ranged as high as $1.25 at the farmgate, Spring said.
“He (Cleal) is not going to have much luck, and what he gets is going to be an inferior type of animal.”
Cleal thinks otherwise. He said he would not be in Canada if the company saw no opportunities here. Prices fluctuate for wild boar sold into the U.S. hunt market, he said, and producers cannot always expect to fetch $1.25 a lb.
Stories abound of wild boar growers who were bilked by unscrupulous buyers. Cleal described Southern Wild Game as an established company of good repute.
“Prices aren’t always what people want to get, but they actually get paid, and we’ve never ripped anyone off.”
When interviewed last week, Spring agreed that Southern Wild Game is not a “fly-by-night” operation. The Interlake Wild Boar Co-op sold livestock to the Texas company three years ago. That was a year when several wild boar producers were leaving the industry.
