Sask. puts moratorium on wild boar farms, but expert says it might already be too late
Shlok Talati | CBC News | Posted: July 12, 2024 10:00 AM | Last Updated: July 12
Wildlife researcher says regulations come at least 20 years too late
Saskatchewan is putting a moratorium on wild boar farms starting next year, in a bid to regulate the growing population of feral swine in the province.
But a University of Saskatchewan expert says the moratorium and the related regulations come at least 20 years too late.
The province says existing farms have until Jan. 1, 2025, to apply for a licence.
Jason Pollock, CEO of Livestock Services of Saskatchewan (LSS), said the new rules will help them streamline the process of regulating boars.
"The updated regulations, focused on clarity and congruency, will allow LSS to communicate more clearly with its stakeholders as well as guide our support and enforcement services to the industry in a more straightforward manner," he said in a news release.
New regulations include that existing farms will require regular inspections, have to put up fencing, report any escapes and maintain records.
Regulations come too late, says researcher
Ryan Brook, a wildlife researcher at the University of Saskatchewan and director of the Canadian Wild Pig Research Project, said he supports any efforts to control the burgeoning numbers of boars, but these directives hardly help.
He said boars have been escaping farms during the last four decades.
The pigs are known to be incredibly destructive, as they damage crops, spread diseases and contaminate water sources. In the U.S. it is estimated that the animals cause $2.5 billion US of damage each year.
"The genie got out of the bottle during the time that Cheers was a popular TV show," Brook said.
Brook said the problem has been exacerbated by the development of a new "super pig" species. He said wild boars were crossbred with pink domestic pigs on purpose to make a longer and overall bigger animal with a supercharged reproductive rate.
Pink domestic pigs have also escaped from hog barns and currently live in the wild, where they also breed with wild boar, Brook said.
"These hybrid super pigs are highly invasive and are now permanently established in Saskatchewan. The opportunity for eradication is now long past," he said.
'Positive step,' says SaskPork manager
Currently, there are 15 wild boar farms in the province that the Ministry of Agriculture is aware of, the ministry said in an email.
It did not give information on the estimated number of boars on the loose, but said the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation (SCIC) has received between 10 and 15 verified sightings per year over the last five years.
In 2015, SCIC began administering the feral wild boar control program. The province said SCIC has since removed approximately 1,000 wild boars from the province.
Mark Ferguson, manager of SaskPork, said he isn't concerned with the timing of this week's announcement.
"I don't think it's ever too late to try to solve a problem that you've got. I mean, this is one step that the government of Saskatchewan is taking that's a really positive step," he said.
The province had first announced in 2022 that it would be developing regulations for licensing existing commercial wild boar farms while planning to reject any new ones.
LISTEN | Wild boars and how they've taken the prairies by storm:
The regulations, Ferguson said, will help the pork industry possibly deter a widely devastating disease that affects pigs: the African swine fever.
"They [boars] can act as a disease reservoir," he said. "From our perspective, that's the main goal is to make sure we don't get some of these diseases that have taken a foothold in wild populations elsewhere in the world."
African swine fever, fatal to hogs but not a threat to humans, wiped out pig herds in many Asian countries during a 2018 outbreak. Chinese authorities destroyed about 1.2 million pigs in an effort to contain the disease at the time.
Ontario banned the importation, possession, transport, propagation, buying, selling, leasing or trading of live Eurasian wild boar and their hybrids earlier this year — recognizing them as one of the most invasive and damaging mammals on Earth.
Ferguson said that could be a potential avenue going ahead for Saskatchewan.
LISTEN | This little piggy escaped and wreaked havoc on crops and the environment: