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Q: How did the problem start?

A: These boar are not native to North America. They were brought over for farming purposes, escaped from domestic operations, or, in a couple of cases, were purposely released into the wild to create hunting opportunities. The ones that were released into the wild, some thought they wouldn’t do well; what’s actually happened is that there has been an explosion and they’ve done quite, quite well.

Q: When I think of wild boar I think of gentlemanly hunting pursuits and tasty tasty bacon. Why are these animals a problem?

A: They’re incredibly prolific animals, they’re probably the most prolific large mammal on Earth. They’re very large animals, between 60 and 80 kilos. The issue is that they will eat anything, so they do an awful lot of damage to agricultural crops. They tend to be rooters as well, they dig into the ground to get roots and bulbs and do an awful lot of damage to habitat. The other side of that is the potential for disease transmission is quite high. They have been known to harbour quite a shopping list of diseases and parasites, many of which can spread to people and livestock.

Q: You said they also harass cattle? What do they do to the cattle?

A: Producers complain quite a lot about this. They’re quite aggressive and livestock can be very upset at the sight of a boar. They push [cattle] off their feed and generally disturb them.

Q: Do we know how many boar are out there?

A: Certainly, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence coming from Saskatchewan and beyond that they’re seeing a lot of boar. This is a challenge, though, without having serious monitoring, we can’t really say whether the numbers are increasing, decreasing or staying the same. There’s some suggestion that there may be an inclination toward an increase.