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We had Siberian boar, some crossed with domestic pig. We started with 10. They climbed page wire like monkeys. Electric fencing kept them in in the summer but snow covered the electric wire in winter. I tore my rotator cuff shovelling snow off the wire and I didn't dare go outside after dark for fear of running into a loose pig. We had around 250 just a couple of years later. I don't know that the market collapsed due to the regular pork market collapsing. The intention had been to market the wild boar or crosses as a low fat alternative and I will say that wild boar are excellent eating. The trouble was that it was a fad like ostriches and emus. There was no developed market other than marketing them as breeding stock to other farmers. When that market dried up, there was no place to sell the pigs to. We counted ourselves lucky to have managed to get rid of our boar. 2 of them we never did find and they presumably contributed their genes to the super pig population.
For some reason the wild game market has never amounted to anything other than a niche luxury food market on North America. My husband thought it was because we are too close to earlier times when the people who had to depend on what they hunted were poor people who didn't have domestic livestock and admitting you ate game was like admitting you were poor.
And there certainly were loose wild boar packs here in the 2000s.
It’s Durocher!
It’s Poland Chinas!
No, it’s Superpigs!!!!
.... snip ....
While this is no laughing matter by any stretch of the imagination I'm glad you posted the above find and thank you for doing that. I think it's a disaster happening that everybody in North America needs to be aware of. I've now posted the above youtube video to the garden forum because a discussion was started there just last night about fencing out feral pigs in Hawaii. So your post is really very timely.
We had Siberian boar, some crossed with domestic pig. We started with 10. They climbed page wire like monkeys. Electric fencing kept them in in the summer but snow covered the electric wire in winter. I tore my rotator cuff shovelling snow off the wire and I didn't dare go outside after dark for fear of running into a loose pig. We had around 250 just a couple of years later. I don't know that the market collapsed due to the regular pork market collapsing. The intention had been to market the wild boar or crosses as a low fat alternative and I will say that wild boar are excellent eating. The trouble was that it was a fad like ostriches and emus. There was no developed market other than marketing them as breeding stock to other farmers. When that market dried up, there was no place to sell the pigs to. We counted ourselves lucky to have managed to get rid of our boar. 2 of them we never did find and they presumably contributed their genes to the super pig population.
For some reason the wild game market has never amounted to anything other than a niche luxury food market on North America. My husband thought it was because we are too close to earlier times when the people who had to depend on what they hunted were poor people who didn't have domestic livestock and admitting you ate game was like admitting you were poor.
And there certainly were loose wild boar packs here in the 2000s.
I don't remember if I posted about this here before but we have these things on the west side of the Rocky Mountains now. They first came to my attention in 1997 when I was working on a farm here and some sports hunters needed a refrigerated room in the barn to hang the carcass of a Eurasian Wild Boar that they had shot in the mountains in the Thompson/Okanagan region here in BC. The Eurasian wild boars in BC aren't crossed with domestics, they were escapees from a sports business in Alberta that imports, breeds and caters to canned hunts for sports trophy hunters wanting exotic wild game. The escapees were fully adapted to Canada's climate and made their way into the Rocky Mountains and through the low passes to the other side of the mountains. They have bred and spread from there.
The wild boar the hunters brought to the barn cooler to hang was an enormous tusker with tusks 12 inches long and it weighed just over 400 pounds. Now there is open season in BC on these invasives which destroy crops, salmon spawning water ways, native habitat and native wildlife. They have no natural predators in this country and none of the big predators indigenous to BC will go after them because they're so dangerous and have such vicious temperaments.
I don't remember if I posted about this here before but we have these things on the west side of the Rocky Mountains now. They first came to my attention in 1997 when I was working on a farm here and some sports hunters needed a refrigerated room in the barn to hang the carcass of a Eurasian Wild Boar that they had shot in the mountains in the Thompson/Okanagan region here in BC. The Eurasian wild boars in BC aren't crossed with domestics, they were escapees from a sports business in Alberta that imports, breeds and caters to canned hunts for sports trophy hunters wanting exotic wild game. The escapees were fully adapted to Canada's climate and made their way into the Rocky Mountains and through the low passes to the other side of the mountains. They have bred and spread from there.
The wild boar the hunters brought to the barn cooler to hang was an enormous tusker with tusks 12 inches long and it weighed just over 400 pounds. Now there is open season in BC on these invasives which destroy crops, salmon spawning water ways, native habitat and native wildlife. They have no natural predators in this country and none of the big predators indigenous to BC will go after them because they're so dangerous and have such vicious temperaments.
Whenever I read about invasive animals and how they blow up in population and destroy native species, I always imagine a simple solution.... EAT THEM.
Any hunter or angler will tell you that there are limits placed on our harvest because we tend to overharvest our catch... well lets do that with these wild boars. No limits, no license required (well no specific license like in moose, etc) and all year long hunting allowed.
Market the heck out of the wild meat. Heck even sell it to local butchers cheap to promote abundant harvest... soon these pigs will become extinct
Whenever I read about invasive animals and how they blow up in population and destroy native species, I always imagine a simple solution.... EAT THEM.
Any hunter or angler will tell you that there are limits placed on our harvest because we tend to overharvest our catch... well lets do that with these wild boars. No limits, no license required (well no specific license like in moose, etc) and all year long hunting allowed.
Market the heck out of the wild meat. Heck even sell it to local butchers cheap to promote abundant harvest... soon these pigs will become extinct
Whenever I read about invasive animals and how they blow up in population and destroy native species, I always imagine a simple solution.... EAT THEM.
Any hunter or angler will tell you that there are limits placed on our harvest because we tend to overharvest our catch... well lets do that with these wild boars. No limits, no license required (well no specific license like in moose, etc) and all year long hunting allowed.
Market the heck out of the wild meat. Heck even sell it to local butchers cheap to promote abundant harvest... soon these pigs will become extinct
Except for marketing the wild meat, all the things you suggested are already being done in most provinces that are infested - year round open season, no limits, etc. and more, and Alberta even offers a bounty for every pair of ears turned in.
One of the problems with hunting in Canada is that it's all very dangerous territory, whether you encounter animals or not you are taking a big risk. Even if you know the territory well it's still advisable for hunters to go in teams for everybody's own protection. If you don't know the territory you need to go on guided hunts with paid expert locals for your own protection, otherwise you are going to get lost and die out there. Furthermore, research has show that hunting actually accelerates the spread of wild pigs because they flee to new areas to avoid hunters. Ontario bans wild boar hunting because of that, among other reasons.
A problem with hunting the feral pigs for food is that it happens to be a dangerous health risk too. If you personally want to eat the wild meat that you hunted then that is on you alone, but you are going to be eating something uncontrolled and uninspected that carries more than 30 diseases and 40 different parasites that can be contracted by humans and domestic livestock. So the wild meat likely cannot legally be sold to other people because of the high risk of spreading the diseases and parasites into other whole communities and to healthy domestic livestock.
It's just another reason why, especially in this day and age of modern health education when people aren't as ignorant as they used to be that humans raise and control the state of health and meat quality of domestic livestock for human consumption so as to prevent and avoid all sorts of diseases and parasites that are found in the wilderness.
I might eat Eurasian boar meat that was raised healthfully in approved conditions on a licensed farm and was inspected and certified by health inspectors for its safe consumption. But I care enough about my own health that there is no way on god's little green acres that I would eat wild boar meat that came from an uncontrolled animal that was born wild, hunted and taken from the wilderness. I know what those things eat - they eat everything, and I do mean everything including carrion and other nasty things.
Except for marketing the wild meat, all the things you suggested are already being done in most provinces that are infested - year round open season, no limits, etc. and more, and Alberta even offers a bounty for every pair of ears turned in.
One of the problems with hunting in Canada is that it's all very dangerous territory, whether you encounter animals or not you are taking a big risk. Even if you know the territory well it's still advisable for hunters to go in teams for everybody's own protection. If you don't know the territory you need to go on guided hunts with paid expert locals for your own protection, otherwise you are going to get lost and die out there. Furthermore, research has show that hunting actually accelerates the spread of wild pigs because they flee to new areas to avoid hunters. Ontario bans wild boar hunting because of that, among other reasons.
A problem with hunting the feral pigs for food is that it happens to be a dangerous health risk too. If you personally want to eat the wild meat that you hunted then that is on you alone, but you are going to be eating something uncontrolled and uninspected that carries more than 30 diseases and 40 different parasites that can be contracted by humans and domestic livestock. So the wild meat likely cannot legally be sold to other people because of the high risk of spreading the diseases and parasites into other whole communities and to healthy domestic livestock.
It's just another reason why, especially in this day and age of modern health education when people aren't as ignorant as they used to be that humans raise and control the state of health and meat quality of domestic livestock for human consumption so as to prevent and avoid all sorts of diseases and parasites that are found in the wilderness.
I might eat Eurasian boar meat that was raised healthfully in approved conditions on a licensed farm and was inspected and certified by health inspectors for its safe consumption. But I care enough about my own health that there is no way on god's little green acres that I would eat wild boar meat that came from an uncontrolled animal that was born wild, hunted and taken from the wilderness. I know what those things eat - they eat everything, and I do mean everything including carrion and other nasty things.
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Interesting. So Ontario believes that hunting the diseased pigs will mysteriously make them more abundant? The unfortunate thing about that is Ontario is adjacent to a pretty large swath of territory here in America so it would seem you will be sending that crap our way more and more.
Interesting. So Ontario believes that hunting the diseased pigs will mysteriously make them more abundant? The unfortunate thing about that is Ontario is adjacent to a pretty large swath of territory here in America so it would seem you will be sending that crap our way more and more.
"sending that crap", hmmm? How very diplomatic of you.
So you believe that Ontario wants to "stick it" to northern-most adjacent Minnesota, is that it? If that's the paranoid way you prefer to look at it then so be it, that's on you. But I think before you jump to such conspiratorial conclusions and post them online that you should make an effort to familiarize yourself with the territory so you'll actually know what you're talking about. Pigs can swim for very short distances in emergencies but they aren't that good at swimming for miles and miles.
You can go online and take a really close satellite view of the topography, the chains of lakes and connecting water ways and deepwater swamps that exist as a barrier between Ontario and whatever large swath of territory in America you're envisioning. Then get back to us and explain how you think Ontario will be "sending that crap" across all that water to screw up America. Do you maybe think they will be smuggled across on boats or by air lifting them, or maybe somebody will fasten flotation devices onto them and send them on their way?
@Suesbal: actually a lot of wild game can carry diseases or parasites. For example, bear meat has to be fully cooked because it may carry worms. It's still widely hunted and eaten.
@Zoistie: you have a very valid point of the difficulty in selling wild meat to the public because of potential diseases and parasites. As for personal use, all hunters know that whether it be deer, moose, boar, bear or now wild fowl (avian flu) there are real risks consuming uncontrolled "wild" meat.
I am definitely oversimplifying. I guess as a lifelong fisher person I always see a lake overharvested until the population crashes and there are a lot less fish left. I see this pressure on hunting grounds too where popular game is hunted to extreme rarity.
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