The Strange News That ‘Super Pigs’ Wreaked Havoc Across Canada
Wikimedia CommonsThe pigs have caused concerns ranging from agriculture and property damage to the spread of infectious disease.
In this weird news story, once-tame pigs that were released from their farms decades ago have come roaring back to wreak havoc on their old pastures.
When the meat market slowed substantially around 30 years ago, Canadian farmers were forced to release their hogs into the wild where they become feral. They grew enormous, spouted tusks, and turned notably aggressive.
For the Canadian farmers who imported wild boars from Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the goal was primarily to raise meat, and when they no longer needed the supply, they simply let the pigs roam free. Farmers believed that most of the herd wouldn’t survive the cold Canadian winter, but they did.
As a result, there are now wild 600-pound descendants of these farm pigs ravaging the Canadian countryside, rampaging across crops, attacking wildlife, and destroying grasslands.
“We should be worried because we know the biology,” said Ryan Brook, a wildlife researcher with the University of Saskatchewan. “They’re called an ecological train wreck for a reason.”
The hybrids inherited both wild and domestic traits that allowed them to tolerate extreme cold and birth substantial litters. Brook dubbed these offspring “super pigs.” In April 2020, sightings were reported from British Columbia to Manitoba.
“No one even knew where they were,” admitted Ruth Aschim. As a doctoral candidate at the University of Saskatchewan, she has spent the last three years tracking the spread of these pigs using trail cameras and GPS collars. Aschim found that they had rummaged through private property and destroyed invaluable farmland.
Aschim successfully captured a specimen weighing 600 pounds. That’s astounding, especially when compared to pigs in the U.S. or Europe whose average weight is somewhere between 150 and 200 pounds.
As of now, provincial officials in Ontario are asking people to download an app or use an email address to report super pig sightings. In Alberta, meanwhile, the pigs can be hunted at will, but because the pigs are so smart they have quickly learned to avoid hunters.
