wild bacon

There is an invasive species of wild boar mated with farmed pig that is overwhelming Saskatchewan and is quickly spreading east and west from there to expand at a quick rate. They at maturity can weigh up to 200kg, they mature quickly to reproduction age, and they can have two litters a year each with about six piglets. They root in the ground getting into the roots of all kinds of growth, and eat anything they find that is ground based, like eggs and larvae and mice and so on. They also eat seedlings which will arrest any natural forest expansion, and by rubbing their tough coats against existing trees, they scratch enough of the bark away that insects can go in and eventually kill the tree. There are no predators that are numerous enough to make a noticeable dent in the wild pig population, so their numbers continue to grow unchecked.

They are very adaptable and can live as far north as the tree line and as far south as deep into the US south. They carry numerous diseases, many of which can be passed off to other livestock and even, to people. They are smart and can figure out escape paths easily.

Shooting them does not work as they scatter at the gun shot and then go and hide such that they are very difficult to discover, and then continue reproducing. Traps can be set for them, but only for a short time as they are smart enough to notice something is not right and will avoid the area where the trap is. Researchers have used a helicopter to throw down a net over one so as to tranquilize the pig and then attach a geo-location collar. In this way the tagged pigs can be tracked, but this is too expensive a method to capture the wild pigs en masse for removal.

The US and Australia also have this wild pig problem and the problem is further advanced in those jurisdictions; I do not know if they have found a way to curtail the ridiculous growth of this wild pig population.

The only reason why I post about this is that I have been thinking about what would happen if their numbers really did balloon way out of control, spreading into towns and cities, attacking people as they are large and will eat just about anything and continuing to reproduce at an extraordinary rate. One solution I can think of would be if we could find a way to sterilize them by feeding them a medicine designed for that. For example, mix the medicine into a peanut butter ball of which dozens can be dropped from a helicopter into an area where the wild pigs are actively burrowing. And keep flying around to locate more groups of wild pigs to drop more of them. Repeat doing this covering various areas, over and over and all over.