‘Super pigs’ took over the prairies. Now they’re spreading further, quickly

For years, some researchers have been sounding the alarm, about the spread of wild boars—also called ‘super pigs”—on Canada’s prairies. A few years ago, the situation was bad. Now it’s critical. The pigs are multiplying and becoming harder to hunt or capture. They’ve now been seen in British Columbia and Ontario. And the US media is now reporting on the threat of invading Canadian super pigs.

Dr. Ryan Brook, a professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Saskatchewan, says the response to the spread of the pigs, to this point, has involved too much talk and too little action. “I’ve sort of said, you know what, I’m not coming to a meeting anymore unless everybody shows up with at least four dead pigs in the back of their truck, because we can talk about this until the end of time, but we have to actually get serious and do something,” says Brook.  

How did these pigs become “super” in the first place? What have we tried to do about them so far? And what’s the worst-case scenario here if we don’t get their spread under control?

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