On April 13, a farmer in Nelson Country, North Dakota, was attacked by a feral pig–but not just any old swine. The perpetrator was what authorities and wildlife experts are calling a “super pig,” or a hybrid between a European wild boar and a domestic pig. The beast made repeated attempts to maul the farmer until it was finally shot dead.
This attack is just the latest development in a feral boar problem that’s become an increasing issue in Canada and is now threatening to spread into North Dakota and other US border states.
While the threat of feral boars is nothing new–southern states have had a separate population running rampant for decades–these northern pigs differ in one major way: they’re capable of surviving the harsh Canadian winters.
Dr. Ryan Brook, head of a University of Saskatchewan research program, says the pigs survive due to their unique behavior. The super pigs appear to burrow into the snow, making snow caves and tunnels, and lining them with cattails for warmth. This, along with their voracious, omnivorous feeding habits and incredible fertility make them a menace to land and wildlife wherever they live.
Brook’s team has been tracking the super pig’s spread through Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba for decades, and the rate at which they’re expanding is startling. There even appear to be sightings of the pigs within the city limits of Edmonton and other major cities in the provinces, raising doubts about the provinces’ abilities to control the threat.
“They’re highly elusive,” Brook said in an interview with The Guardian, “and when there’s any pressure on them, especially if people start hunting them, they become almost completely nocturnal, and they become very elusive—hiding in heavy forest cover, and they disappear into wetlands and they can be very hard to locate.”
Sound familiar? It’s the same situation that’s playing out across the South (Texas alone has an estimated population of 1.5 million), though their conception stories differ slightly. Pigs were never endemic to North America, and it’s thought that Spaniards first brought domestic swine to Florida and Texas nearly 300 years ago. A few escaped early on, forming the first wild pig populations. Then in the 1930s, European wild hogs were introduced for sport hunting. This much larger, more aggressive species hybridized with existing wild pig populations to form the breed now commonly found across the south.
The Canadian super pig is a similar hybrid. However, it didn’t even exist until the 1980s, when ranchers bred it in captivity, seeking to form a larger, more resilient pig capable of thriving in cold northern winters. Again, escapees formed the basis of the feral super pig population now rampant in Canada. It’s unclear exactly how many super pigs now inhabit the country, but Brook’s team reports nearly 55,000 unique sightings in recent years.
“They’re incredibly intelligent,” Brook said. And, if the southern variety is any indication, they’re capable of laying waste to agricultural fields overnight. As omnivores, they’ll eat just about anything–corn, soybean, roots, and grasses, among other things–giving them the potential to spread wherever there’s an appropriate food source. Which, in the prairie pothole and ag mosaic of North Dakota, is a long, long ways.
Habitat right along the US-Canada border is not ideal, according to Brook, but his team has identified a Manitoba “stronghold” 42 miles from the border. This might seem like quite the distance for a pig to travel, but research on feral pigs from the University of Georgia suggests otherwise. Using radio-collared hogs, researchers found that the animals are capable of traveling miles in a single day, often spreading out like spokes on a bicycle wheel and forming new hubs, or groups. While the research was conducted on southern populations, there’s little reason to believe similar behavior wouldn’t apply to the Canadian super pig as well.
It's unclear how well-equipped border states are for a potential encroachment. Most, including North Dakota and Montana, currently have game regulations prohibiting the hunting of feral swine to avoid incentivizing people to release the species. And, as researchers noted, hunting often has the opposite intended effect. It makes the super pigs nocturnal, and in turn, even harder to hunt and control. As such, other control tactics will likely be needed, but what exactly those are, remains to be seen.
In any case, as one North Dakotan can now attest, they’re making their way south, and they aren’t going to be shy about it.
