WILD BOARS BOOMING
Activity on rise in province
Wild boar activity is spreading in Alberta and taking an increasing toll on agriculture and the environment, says a provincial official tasked with eradicating them.
While a high-tech pilot project seeking more effective ways at reducing their numbers is showing promise, the range of the highly destructive mammals has been increasing in northern and central Alberta, said Perry Abramenko, an inspector with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry.
“Reports of them seem to be increasing. Wild boar populations are expanding or we’re getting more reports, or it’s both,” said Abramenko.
Sightings of the wily animals, he said, have spread to the Vermilion, Barrhead and Peace River regions and areas north of Edson, he said.
Ironically, hunters may be playing a role in the animals’ spread from the traditional hot spots of Woodland and Lac St. Anne counties, he said.
“Hunting usually involves just removing one at a time, but they ’re so intelligent they become wary and they’ll disperse and spread,” said Abramenko.
“Hunters are not helping us with eradication. They ’re actually making the problem worse.”
The province tried to counter that in 2017 by ending a $50-ahead bounty program in the two most active counties, though it remains in effect in other parts of Alberta. The nine-year bounty resulted in a cull of 1,135 wild boars.
The bounty also helps the province keep track of the boars, which are inflicting havoc on farms and ranches, said Abramenko.
“We’re starting to hear of damage to crops and pastures,” he said.
“Farmers are thinking it’s from elk or deer, but it’s actually wild boar … their tracks look similar. There’s a lot more damage than we’re aware of.”
The boars damage the ground as they root for food with their distinctive, hardened snouts, as well as cause damage to waterways by wallowing, say experts.
Abramenko’s team has been using camera-equipped drones to track down their herds, or soundings.
Corrals baited with fermented corn are then erected and equipped with cellular cameras that alert officials when numbers of boar have gathered there.
“Through an app on my phone, I can send a text command to the camera and it sends a signal to close the gate,” said Abramenko, adding the animals are then humanely euthanized and tested for disease, pregnancies and parasites.
So far, the measure adopted from the United States Department of Agriculture has corralled 18 of the boars.
Effectively controlling the animals means eliminating most of an entire sounder at a time, said Abramenko.
“To keep a population steady, you’d have to remove 70 per cent of that and even after heavy hunting, you don’t get more than 30 per cent,” he said.
Females give birth to two litters a year, each typically numbering five piglets.
The non-native animals were brought to Western Canada from Europe in the 1980s to be hunted for sport but were officially designated a pest in 2008 after numbers of them escaped from their enclosures.
Some are now farmed for meat. While some have put the number of wild boars in Alberta at 1,000 to 1,500, Abramenko said not enough is known about them to be sure.