http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080708.walberta-boars0708
Alberta orders landowners to help eradicate wild boars
JOHN COTTER
THE CANADIAN PRESS
July 8, 2008 at 5:39 PM EDT
EDMONTON — Alberta has become hog heaven to so many boars on the loose that the province is ordering landowners to eradicate all of the tusked animals not in captivity.
It is estimated that more than 1,500 of the dark-haired beasts, including game farm escapees and their offspring, are at large and happily rooting around rural areas from Lac la Biche in north-central Alberta all the way south to Medicine Hat.
The European wild boars, which can weigh up to 275 kilograms, have adapted to frigid winters, breed like rabbits, dig up farm fields like giant gophers and have even chased school children at bus stops, said Cliff Munroe, director of regulatory services for Alberta Agriculture.
“They can be dangerous. Let's put it this way. If I came across one, I would be running in the other direction,” Mr. Munroe said Tuesday.
“It is not something you go up and pet.”
The petulant porkers are prone to migrate and can spread disease to domesticated pigs. They are so destructive that the province has put non-captive wild boars in the same official pest category as rats.
Since 1950 Alberta has co-ordinated a rural-based Norway rat control program funded by the government that has essentially kept the province rat-free.
Under the program, landowners are responsible for reporting and eliminating rats, mainly in municipalities along the Saskatchewan boundary. Landowners who fail to report the pests can be taken to court.
Alberta farmers began importing wild boars in the early 1990s. The lean meat, which is high in protein, is growing in popularity because of its sweet, nutty flavour.
Problems began when some of the perpetually hungry and highly adaptive wild boars escaped captivity.
The opportunistic omnivores love to breed and chow down on corn, wheat, potatoes, oats, rye and beans. Wild boar sows can have two litters of up to 13 young each year.
If that isn't enough to anger farmers, wild boars burrow large dens underneath fields that result in holes big enough to swallow agriculture machinery.
“The combines go over and tractors go over and fall in these holes,” Mr. Munroe said. “They are very damaging — eating the crops. They are nocturnal. They are hard to catch, so they are an animal that is really hard to get rid of.”
The number of wild boars in the Lac Ste. Anne area northeast of Edmonton was so bad four years ago that the county paid a $50 bounty for each animal killed, a move that has only helped control the porcine problem, not eliminate it.
Wild boars on the loose in Alberta were once considered to be stray animals. That designation meant that Alberta Agriculture brand inspectors had to try to recapture the beasts. Farmers could only kill the animals if they got special permission from the province.
A regulation that went into effect on May 31 means landowners are actually required to report non-captive wild boars to the province and then eradicate them.
If a landowner does not take action, municipalities have the power to go in an do the job and charge the landowner a fee for the service.
Earl Hagman, who operates Hog Wild Specialties on land near Mayerthorpe, Alta., raises wild boars for the meat and holds special barbecues. Bow hunters can also pay a fee to try their luck at stalking one of the beasts in the dense bush on his property.
Mr. Hagman said he has no problem with the new government regulation. He said people who want to hunt his boar without paying have cut his fences four times in an unsuccessful attempt to lure his animals away.
“We have had the fences cut, folded back and grain trails dropped to get them out,” said Mr. Hagman, who added that stray boars in the region have not been a problem.
