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Sex-mad "super pigs" that can eat through anything are wreaking havoc in Canada – and look set to invade the US.
The crossbreed has the survival skills of wild boars as well as the super high fertility rate of domesticated pigs, the perfect recipe for ecological disaster.
Canada is already battling with the devastation they leave in their wake. Another threat is that they can spread diseases such as African swine fever to farm animals. And they look likely to spill into US states such as Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana – where steps are already being taken to prevent that.
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Ryan Brook, professor at the Canadian University of Saskatchewan, spoke to the LA Times and called the feral creatures "the most invasive animal on the plant" and "an ecological train wreck".
Brook said: "Nobody should be surprised when pigs start walking across that border if they haven’t already. The question is: What will be done about it?" He said 65% or more of a wild pig population could be killed every year and it would still keep growing.
He suggested the only thing that can be done is to eradicate them: "The only path forward is you have to be really aggressive and you have to use all the tools in the toolbox." Eradication is now essentially impossible in Canada, but there's still hope for the US. Montana has already banned raising and transporting wild pigs within the state.
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The animals were not originally native to the continent, but they have been around for hundreds of years. In the 1980s, farmers were encouraged to raise wild boar for sale. The market collapsed soon after and all the boars were released, creating the problem we see today.
The species is resilient and survived winters and other epidemics such as swine flu. Brook also revealed that a sow can give birth to six piglets twice a year, which explains why the population boomed.
With his team surveying around 62,000 wild pigs across Canada, Brook gave suggestions on how to deal with the issue in the US – including "BoarBuster" traps and net guns launched from helicopters.
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