Officials working to eradicate the invasive species disagree with a researcher’s belief that populations are widespread
How big is Western Canada’s wild pig problem?
It became obvious at Canada’s first Wild Pig Summit that experts are split on the issue, divided over almost every aspect of the situation.
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“They’re not super-pigs,” complained Darby Warner of the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. after hearing a presentation by the University of Saskatchewan’s Ryan Brook, who popularized the term and has received international media attention for his comments.
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“There’s been nothing, nothing south (of the Yellowhead highway),” he said, criticizing maps in which huge numbers of wild boar sightings create an impression of widespread wild pig populations across most of the Prairie provinces.
That complaint is shared by many people working in the official wild pig control efforts operated on the Prairies and elsewhere. They fear that exaggerated perceptions of the wild pig problem could make people give up on fighting the menace or provoke overreactions that do more harm than good.
Brook knows he has provoked the ire of others in the wild pig control community, but has been unfazed by the criticism. He continues to describe an area east of Saskatoon as a “wild pig factory” and other areas of breeding hogs as “strongholds.”
Brook has been tracking and catching wild pigs since the early 2010s and is recognized within the community as the expert who first brought the issue to the attention of the public, government and the hog industry. He has been open and accessible with journalists as well as being an active user of social media, which has taken his message to people around the world.
He is not afraid to use dramatic language to highlight the issue. In his presentation to the conference, he described his research team “seeing shotgun blasts of pigs emanating from these hotspots.”
Those from official wild pig control programs tend to speak in more subdued tones and argue that the populations are not as widespread as some of Brook’s maps and statements suggest.
“I don’t really care where the pigs were back in 1980. I want to know where are they now?” said Dr. Wayne Lees, who heads Manitoba’s Squeal on Pigs program.
“We’re trying to present updated maps for the last year.”
A hog industry representative warned against exaggerated claims about wild pig presence and spread.
“When we sensationalize things like ‘super-pigs,’ when we show maps that are overly lit red, we run the risk of international reaction,” she said.
“It is paramount for us as an industry to balance the need for … education and understanding (of) where our gaps are … against potential international backlash that could be detrimental to us.”
Many hog producers fear that concerns about wild pigs spreading diseases from Canada to the United States could cause the U.S. border to be closed to Canadian pigs at some point. It’s a risk Brook, who receives research funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has often highlighted.
“We have lots of pigs that are not very far from the Canada-U.S. border,” he said in his presentation.
The debate over the size and severity of Western Canada’s wild pig population and problem should receive more clarity in coming years because many research projects are underway and planned across the Prairies. Today, however, expert impressions range all the way from wild pigs being almost out of control to well in control.
