Wild boar were introduced to Saskatchewan in the 1990’s as a form of exotic livestock, intended to diversify Saskatchewan’s agricultural industry. Over the course of the decade some of the animals managed to escape captivity or were released by producers into the wild.
It was initially assumed that wild boars were incapable of withstanding the harsh Saskatchewan winters and would die from the cold. As was later discovered, they develop thick layers of fat during the summer that insulate them from the cold. In addition, wild boars only natural predator is the Siberian tiger, which is very hard to come across in Saskatchewan.
Since their introduction to the wild, wild boars have spread quickly spread across Saskatchewan. They can be found in Rural Municipalities extending from the Manitoba border to the Alberta border, and from the edge of the northern boreal forest to the United States border.
According to Dr. Ryan Brook, an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources, it is possible that within the next 10 to 15 years there could be more wild boars than people in Saskatchewan if nothing is done to control their numbers.
“Wild boars have been sighted in 111 Rural Municipalities across Saskatchewan over the last three years,” said Brooks. “They have a very high reproduction rate. Female wild boars reach sexual maturity at six months old, have roughly six offspring per litter, and have two litters per year. Their population growth rate is exponential,” said Brook.
What concerns Brook the most is the amount of damage that they can cause to native animals, livestock, and crops.
Wild boar will eat almost anything. They have been known to subsist only on salamanders and amphibians, and will even devour deer fawns. However, they especially enjoy eating crops.
“Whereas deer and elk graze crops, wild boar completely uproot the entire plant and can utterly destroy fields. In the United States, there are approximately five million wild boars, and they cause approximately $1.5 billion in damage annually,” said Brooks. “We have to take this matter very seriously. Do we really want wild boars to cause billions of dollars in damage in Saskatchewan?”
In addition, wild boars can transfer diseases to livestock and humans, although Brook admits that more data is needed to determine the rate of disease transmission to livestock.
This winter Brooks will lead a research team that will plant tracking collars on wild boars across Saskatchewan. They hope to gather more information on where they are travelling to, their survival rate, and reproductive rate.
Information will also be gathered from biologists, hunters, farmers, and First Nations regarding sightings.
The information gathered will be used to create a comprehensive map that details where wild boar are located in Saskatchewan. It will also help researchers to better understand how many boars are in Saskatchewan. Those that are interested in the program can follow the progress Brook’s team has made on the group’s Facebook page, “Wild Hog Watch (Feral Wild Boars)”.
So far, only sporadic wild boar eradication has taken place across most of the province. Wild boar are considered a dangerous pest in Saskatchewan and can be killed by hunters most times of the year without tags. However, Brooks strongly believes that lone hunters are ineffective at eradicating wild boars and that sporadic hunting is sure to exacerbate the problem.
“Coordinated efforts, like the wild boar eradication program that is in place at Moose Mountain Provincial Park region, are needed in order to eradicate wild boars before their numbers get too high. It is one of the few programs in western Canada that has proven to be effective,” added Brooks.
The Moose Mountain wild boar eradication program was started 13 years ago by Bob Brickley, a local rancher, who, like other producers in the area, was concerned about the damage that wild boars were causing.
“A lot of local producers in the moose mountain area, myself included, were concerned about boars because they were harassing their livestock and causing significant damage to their crops. We couldn’t sit back and let them get out of hand so we got together and developed a strategy to eradicate them,” said Brickley.
It took some trial and error to hone their eradication techniques, but after 13 years Brickley is very confident that their program eliminates boars in the most effective way possible.
“A decade ago we would trek through the bush as a party of marksmen and ambush the boars. We found this method to be slow, ineffective and dangerous. Eventually we switched to an aerial operation; we now locate the boars via a fixed wing aircraft and ambush them on the ground,” said Brickley.
Despite the efficacy of the current technique, Brickley noted that shooting boar while flying from a helicopter would be even more efficent.
“Helicopter shooting is used extensively in Australia to control wild boar operations. It has been proven to be the most cost effective and efficient eradication method. We would like to make the transition to helicopter shooting one day, but we need government permits to do so and we don’t have them at this time,” added
According to Brickley, in the last three years there have been very few sightings of wild boar within Moose Mountain Provincial Park, with the exception of a few that migrated to the park after being released (or escaped) from other areas.
Brickley noted that the provincial government has been supportive of their program, and there is even interest in developing and implementing similar programs across the province.
However, before taking any further action to create wild boar eradication programs the provincial government needs more evidence of the efficacy of aerial hunting and more data on wild boar distribution across Saskatchewan.
“When our team goes out to eliminate boar, it is crucial that we kill every boar in a group. If we only kill four out of five in an ambush we consider the entire operation a failure. Wild boar are very cunning, and the ones that escape adapt to our tactics and become more difficult to kill.
“When lone hunters kill a single boar out of a group, it causes the others to flee to new areas. They also get better at evading hunters, and when you factor in their reproductive rate it’s easy to see why it is so difficult to eradicate them. If we want to truly be successful, wild boar eradication cannot be viewed as a sport,” said Brickley.
“Years ago Alberta implemented a successful rat-free initiative. Saskatchewan needs to have wild boar-free plan, and if we can then I believe that we can be boar free,” said Brickley.
