Sask Pork encourages reporting of wild boar & feral pig sightings

By Bruce Cochrane, Farmscape

Sask Pork is encouraging the public to immediately report wild boar and other feral pig sightings. Earlier this week, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture has introduced enhanced measures to control feral pigs, including a moratorium on new commercial wild boar farms, developing regulations for licensing existing farms and enhancing surveillance and control.

Mark Ferguson, the General Manager of Sask Pork, said the biggest contribution the public can make is to report sightings.

”We know there are feral pigs across the province. When we say feral pigs that's wild boar and perhaps that could consist of other crosses that may have occurred between domestic escaped pigs and wild boar so there's some different animals that could encompass but it's basically pigs in the wild in Saskatchewan,” explained Ferguson. “The wild boar problem in the province started in the mid to late 1990's. At that time, they were encouraging wild boar farms in the province and unfortunately some of those animals escaped or were released and that's basically how the problem started.”

Ferguson continued, “They are a species that does have a great ability to reproduce so once they are in an area, they are able to expand their population so that's one problem. Secondly, they damage property. The can get into crop and pasture land and dig it up and eat crop. The other thing, that is most concerning to the hog industry, is they can act as a reservoir for diseases that affect domestic swine, such as African Swine Fever. When that gets into the wild pig population it's a major problem and we've seen that in Europe.”
Sask Pork operates the PIG-SPOT hotline. Ferguson encouraged the public to immediately report all wild boar and feral pig sightings by calling 1-833-PIG-SPOT or your local Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation office.

For more, please visit farmscape.ca.