Super Pigs to invade Northern States from Canada

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

Discover the Feral “Super Pigs” Set to Invade the United States from Canada

Written by Eliana Riley

Updated: March 30, 2023


Introduction

Wild pigs are a non-native and often invasive species within North America. While hybrid pigs in the United States cause significant ecological damage, “super pigs” in Canada are an even greater threat. Some consequences of super pig presence include the destruction of agriculture, soil erosion, the decline in the population of other species, and the spread of disease. While super pigs primarily reside in Canada, their populations and range are expanding rapidly, causing some to believe that they might migrate to the northern United States. Discover what super pigs are and find out why they threaten the environment and other animal populations.



Background on Wild Pigs’ History

New World explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Hernando de Soto introduced North America to wild pigs during the early sixteenth century. The explorers intended to create a domestic population of pigs within the continent. However, many of these pigs escaped, and the wild pig population was established.



In the early 1900s, wild Eurasian boars were brought to America and bred with feral pigs already present in the United States. As a result, a hybrid species was born. Now, pigs in the United States mainly belong to one of three categories: wild boars, feral pigs, and hybrid pigs. However, the three categories of pigs are considered the same species overall and are invasive species in the United States. In fact, more than six million wild pigs reside throughout the country.



Diet and Behavior

Wild pigs can live between four and five years on average and produce between one and three litters annually. Female wild pigs typically reach sexual maturity after one year. Litters of wild pigs usually include between four and six offspring. Many wild pigs form groups called “sounders,” which typically travel together. However, the wild pigs within these groups are usually female or juvenile pigs. Male wild pigs, or boars, are solitary animals that travel alone.



Wild pigs can be encountered in shaded areas or near bodies of water. These animals do not have sweat glands to keep them cool in the day’s heat. Thus, they often attempt to find shade or bodies of water to keep them cool. Lack of sweat glands also causes wild pigs to be less active during the day when temperatures and sunlight are at their highest intensities. Unfortunately, the presence of wild pigs near bodies of water can create bacteria in the water that negatively impacts ecosystems and water quality.



Wild pigs are omnivores, meaning they will eat nearly anything that comes across their path. While they primarily consume vegetation, they have also been known to eat livestock, such as lambs and kids, bird eggs, reptiles, amphibians, and more. Some predators of young wild pigs include foxes, bobcats, and coyotes. The greatest threats to wild pigs are mountain lions and humans. Overall, though, very few predators prefer to attack and consume wild pigs, resulting in a lack of stable wild pig population numbers and rapid population growth of the species.

Are Super Pigs Coming to the United States?

Some experts claim that super pigs have been spotted within 10 miles of the United States-Canada border. Furthermore, others speculate that these animals have already made their way into states such as North Dakota. With no physical border between Canada and the United States, it’s easy to see why these pigs would be able to cross into the United States in the coming years. Due to their diet and behavior, super pigs in the United States could disrupt the food chain, destroy agriculture and other property, and cause disease and ecological disaster.



Another fact about super pigs is that they are highly intelligent. Super pigs can recognize when they are being hunted or threatened, allowing them to change their course of action to survive. For instance, if a super pig realized it was being hunted, it might become nocturnal or hide in brush, forests, or dense wetlands to evade capture or death. If super pigs were to move into the United States, disposing of them or attempting to remove them from United States land would prove challenging, if not impossible.

a-z-animals.com/blog/discover-the-feral-super-pigs-set-to-invade-the-united-states-from-canada/

Destructive ‘Super Pigs’ From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S.

The animals root through crops, prey on native species, cause soil erosion and carry pathogens that can spread to humans


Wild pigs have terrorized the southern United States for decades, destroying farmers’ crops, preying on native species and carrying a variety of pathogens that can spread to humans. The animals have mostly stuck to warmer regions, such as Texas and Florida, but they still manage to cause an estimated $2.1 billion in damage every year.



Now, colder regions of the U.S. could soon be staring down their own swine foes: Canadian “super pigs.” These giant, intelligent hybrids of domestic pigs and wild boars are poised to invade from the north.


We have already documented pig occurrences less than ten miles from the U.S. border. Quite honestly, I think there have already been some in Manitoba going into North Dakota for the last five or six years,” Ryan Brook, who leads the University of Saskatchewan’s Canadian Wild Pig Research Project, tells Field and Stream’s Sage Marshall. “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.”



Wild pigs are not native to the Americas. They were first brought to the West Indies in 1493 by Christopher Columbus and then introduced to the continental U.S. in 1539, when conquistador Hernando de Soto landed in Florida to plunder and colonize the southeastern U.S. His small herd of 13 swine soon grew to 700. The animals that were left behind or escaped during these European excursions formed the continent’s first wild pig populations.



In the early 1900s, wild Eurasian boars were brought to the U.S. for recreational hunting. These boars bred with the existing feral pigs, forming hybrids. Today, wild pig populations have spread across the southeastern U.S. and are made up of boars, feral pigs and crosses of the two. Though these groups have differences, all share the same scientific name and are considered invasive. Now, the estimated population of wild pigs in the country has exploded to more than six million.



“They lived a benign existence up until, you know, probably three or four decades ago, where we started seeing these rapid excursions in areas we hadn’t seen before,” Michael Marlow, assistant program manager for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s national feral swine damage management program, tells the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt.



Compared with the U.S., Canada has been battling wild pigs since only recently, when they were brought over from Europe in the 1980s to be raised on farms. Farmers created the super pigs, breeding their hogs with feral populations to form larger varieties that provided more meat and were easier to shoot, per the Guardian. These pigs usually weigh between 120 and 250 pounds, though one was recorded at 661 pounds.



“All the experts said at that time: ‘Well, no worries. If a wild pig or a wild boar ever escaped from a farm, there’s no way it would survive a western Canadian winter. It would just freeze to death,’” Brook tells the Guardian.



But these pigs surprised experts. Their large size and ingenuity have made the animals resilient to Canada’s cold. “One of the things they do to survive is tunnel under the snow,” Brook tells Field and Stream. The animals line their snow caves with cattails for insulation, keeping them warm. “If you go early in the morning on a cold day, you can actually see steam pouring out the top of the nests.”



Now, wild pigs have a range of about 300,300 square miles in Canada, per a 2019 survey. In the last decade, they have been expanding their territory by almost 34,000 square miles per year. These hogs eat Canadian crops such as wheat, barley and canola, wrote Andrea Anderson for National Geographic in 2020, and they are opportunistic omnivores, meaning they’ll gobble up pretty much anything they can—small mammals, reptiles, eggs, nuts, tree saplings and even deer fawns. Their rooting causes soil erosion and can lead to the destruction of culturally significant sites, such as cemeteries. They also carry diseases such as swine brucellosis, pseudorabies, leptospirosis, and trichinosis.



“We should be worried, because we know the biology,” Brook told National Geographic. “They’re called an ecological train wreck for a reason.”


mithsonianmag.com/smart-news/destructive-super-pigs-from-canada-threaten-the-northern-us-180981692/



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