Banning hunting a species the province is trying to eradicate might sound counterintuitive, but Brook said there has been no evidence that sport hunting has lowered wild boar populations. That’s partially because the animals reproduce relatively frequently and have large numbers of offspring, averaging two litters of six piglets per year, he said.
“Unfortunately, not only does hunting not eliminate them fast enough … it also breaks up groups and spreads them around the landscape, because very rarely will hunters actually remove a whole population,” Brook said.
Huh. TIL.
As someone with a farm in the middle of the worst infestation area in N. Alberta, hunting can control them, but it has to be very, very intense. We killed about 300 of them over 4 years and haven’t seen a pig or pig sign in almost 3 years now, by hunting down sounders to the piglet, and doing it quickly before they could spread out.
But the same goes for trapping. We had the province “trapping” but they never really wiped out sounders entirely and it never improved the areas that were being trapped. When they brought a different group in that did it properly, they made a difference.
A bunch of weekend warriors out plinking for them does not accomplish anything.
Thanks for posting. That’s interesting.
It’s a similar concept with coyotes. If you leave them alone the population stabilizes, if you hunt them they spread out and reproduce like mad and you end up with more coyotes. Unless you methodically take out every coyote in an area it’s better to leave them alone then to hunt them if you want to keep the population down.
Boars are a different problem though, since they are so destructive. Definitely need a solution to clearing the area of wild ones.
It’s kinda fascinating.
I live in an area with a few packs of coyotes (in Ontario, Canada), and I learned from a ministry woman that they lack the resources to eradicate them, so they recommend “hounding” them…but only with the goal of eliminating entire packs.
If a local gets really stubborn about killing them, what happens is they typically kill them only on their own property…which doesn’t kill a pack…but rather splits it up and forces the survivors to create new packs and the overall populating can grow. So what she recommended was that the locals hire an expert with hounds and get the permission/cooperation from as many surrounding landowners as possible…so everybody can come up with a plan to control the population in a meaningful way. The major obstacle being that there are more cottages in my area than properties with livestock, so it’s difficult to get the permission of people who are around infrequently and/or don’t understand the issue.
Yep, creates smart and experienced sounders of boars. US states that are using testing efficacious methods are having great success with eradication efforts.
They have banned hunting and set up zones of populations. They target these zones independently. The efforts primarily focus on two methods of reduction:
camera operated spring traps that capture an entire sounder.
Helicopter sharp shooters who coordinate with drone pilots who have infrared cameras to spot sounders.
The key is taking out each and every boar in a sounder.
Source: Master Naturalist involved in eradication efforts.
Because I had to look it up, and to save others the effort, a sounder is the term for a group of wild boar or pigs. Like a pack of wolves or a murder of crows.
I thought that was clear when I said “sounder of boars”. Thanks for the clarification.
At first I thought it was a certain member of the group, which sort of fit the context but I’d never heard the term so looked it up.
Thanks. I kinda figured that but hadn’t got around to looking it up.
