In October wild boar managed to stay in the news again as the selection below of some of the more noteworthy reports shows.
Mexico to cull 50,000 wild boars from US invasion
Texas has found a way to retaliate for the never ending uninvited migration of people from Mexico to the United States: Send in the boar!
According to Yahoo News Mexican authorities plan
“to slaughter some 50,000 wild boars that have crossed the border from the United States and now threaten agriculture in Mexico.
The Ministry of Environment in Chihauha state said some 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of farmland in the border town of Ojinaga have been affected by the large number of feral pigs that have come from Presidio County, Texas.
"We must get rid of these European wild boars because they sleep overnight on US soil during the day and cross over to the Mexican side to feed," Ignacio Legarreta, a state official, told local media."
It appears that it is particularly offensive to officials that
“"They have reproduced to reach more than 50,000 animals that threaten the area," said Legarreta.
The authorities intend to use cages with food inside to trap the animals.
(Yahoo News UK & Ireland, 11/10/2011)
Meanwhile Bulgarian hunters have encountered a more isolated problem albeit with far more serious consequences.
Bulgarian Hunter Kills Colleague during Wild Boar Hunt
Bulgarian hunters were on a boar hunt outside the village of Kornitsa in Southwestern Bulgaria on a Sunday morning when they apparently encountered boar. One of the hunters fired and killed a fellow hunter – instead of the boar.
Police has not been able to determine which of the hunters fired the lethal shot. However, they announced with great satisfaction that the fatal shot came from a legally owned firearm, as reported by novinite.com (Sofia News Agency).
Police and the local prosecutor are still investigating. (novinite.com October22,2011)
This tragic event pales compared to our next story. It comes courtesy of MSN.com News (India).
Wild boar feast: Five die
“Dehra Dun, Oct 15 (PTI) Five people died and six were undergoing treatment after feasting on a wild boar in Pauri district in Uttarakhand, a health official said today.
They feasted on a wild boar on September seven in village Pabo following which they developed high fever and joint pains.
The patients were admitted to Pauri district hospital for treatment, Pauri Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr L K Gosain said.
When their condition deteriorated, their family members rushed them to hospitals in Dehra Dun and in New Delhi, he said.
The five died between October 10 and 12,” Gosain said. (MSN.comIndiaNews 10/15/2011)
This sounds to me very much like a case of trichinosis in the parenteral phase, which results in fever, muscle pain and possible death if the parasites enter the central nervous system. But so does brucellosis to a degree. I may be wrong though because I am not an expert on trichinosis.
Talking about diseases carried and spread by wild pigs. Read this one:
Wild pigs, sheep on remote island in the Great Salt Lake could bring disease to other animal populations
On October 28, 2011 Wendy Leonard and John Hollenhorst published an article in the Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Sightings of wild and possibly illegal sheep and pigs on a remote island of the Great Salt Lake have prompted investigations by multiple state agencies.
Yet, for the past year-and-a-half, little has been done about it.
The pigs on Fremont Island appear to be Russian boars, which are not only illegal in Utah, but can carry disease. It is unknown how they arrived, or what species they actually are, but one was spotted early last year roaming the Antelope Island causeway.
"In the act of trying to capture it, it drowned and the animal died," said Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Sgt. Mitch Lane.
He said it was apparent that the pig came from Fremont Island, where a private hunting ranch is currently in operation, boasting various animals such as unusual wild sheep, some cattle and more than a dozen pigs.
"By all appearances, it looked like this could have been one," Lane said, adding that the pigs had long, brown hair and large tusks that were visible from agency helicopters hovering over the island's highest peak, Castle Rock.
The biggest concern officials have, however, isn't where the animals came from or whether the animals are licensed to be there, but that both the sheep and pigs could spread disease or interbreed with other wild animal populations living on Antelope Island.
"It scares me to think of a feral pig population becoming a challenge in Utah like it is in so many other states," said Bruce L. King, state veterinarian and director of Utah's animal industry. "Not only because of the property damage and the crop damage they do, but if you get disease in that feral population, it's almost impossible to control."
If it were up to him, King said he'd ban all domestic swine hunting in Utah because of how great the threat that disease infestation is.
"If they can get off of Fremont Island to the causeway, they can sure get off to the mainland," he said.
“. . . Fremont, southwest of Ogden and south of Promontory Point's southern tip, is the third-largest island in the Great Salt Lake, at 2,900 acres. It is privately owned, mostly desolate and bears little sign of human habitation, having changed very little since early pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake valley.
In recent years, the desert island has been rented by father and son duo, Dean and Justin Barrow, for use of their private hunting ranch, Barrow Land and Livestock. The two had originally set out to stock the island with buffalo and other wild animals, offer guided hunting excursions and charge between $1,000 and $10,000 per kill.
One such hunter, Outdoor Life hunting editor Andrew McKean, said he participated in a tour on Fremont Island in March 2010, where he bagged a wild boar, among other prohibited species in the state of Utah.
"I've hunted wild sheep and wild hogs around the world, and the Fremont Island animals were as described: mainly Mouflon, Corsican and Barbary sheep — with a few Merino rams mixed in — and Russian boar," he said. "Though they undoubtedly had exotic pedigrees, they behaved as wild animals, and we hunted them in the best traditions of fair-chase pursuit."
“. . . "They're a very neat attraction," he said, although he would not confirm the species, saying he'd have to "check on that . . .” (Deseret News, October 28, 2011)
Even sunny Florida is suffering at the hands of mischievous wild pigs. At least if one can believe the excited comments of golfers, neighbors and a trapper as reported by MyFox, Orlando and WFTV.com.
Let this report speak for both of them.
Wild boars run amok on Brevard County golf course
“Dozens of wild hogs are terrorizing an upscale Melbourne golf course and trappers say they have already caught 17 of them.
The hogs are tearing up the grass along a number of holes on the golf course at the Suntree Country Club near North Wickham Road.
Residents say they spotted one boar that appeared to be 300 lbs. with two and a half inch cutters, which are like small tusks.
"They are razor sharp," said wildlife trapper James Dean, about the boars.
Dean said that there are at least six boars left in the area.
"They are coming into the backyards on the golf courses and rutting up the ground, and I mean tearing it up with their snout to get grubworms, insects, snakes," said James Dean, a wildlife trapper.
Ed Mangold lives on the eighth hole where the hogs made another mess.
"It looked like about a two foot deep by eight foot by eight foot swimming pool," said Mangold.
Mangold had golf course staff fill in the hole.
"They just get down with their tusks and keep going and going and going," Dean explained.
The wild weather from early October flooded the nearby woods where the boars live. Dean says the animals are seeking higher and dryer ground on the golf course.
He uses dogs to track the boars and sets traps to catch them.
Officials say they are dangerous animals, and anyone who spots one should contact Florida Fish and Wildlife immediately. (Wftv.com October 29, 2011)
Compared to the wild hogs disrupting peaceful retirement lives in Florida, the wild boar in Singapore lead a peaceful life themselves - even if it is under a tank full of flammable diesel oil.
Wild Boar . . . in Tampines?
“As a longtime resident of Tampines, I pay very close attention to sightings of wildlife in this part of Singapore. . . True, we may not be very close to the forests of the Central Nature Reserves, and most of our parks are little manicured gardens nestled amongst the HDB blocks, but we do have much larger patches of vegetation. While these areas are little more than wasteland composed of a mixture of fire-tolerant woodland, scrub and grassland. . . they provide habitats for many species. . .
It appears that a television news crew was investigating reports of a wild boar that was apparently lurking in the area, only for the chase to end in the discovery of an illegal fuel station. In fact, the wild boar in question was found resting beneath a diesel tank . . .
(Photo from Channel 8 news Facebook page)
It's unfortunate that the wild boar got sidelined, because I'm personally way more interested in how a wild boar might have ended up in Tampines. Although populations of wild boar have become established in the Western and Central Catchment Areas . . .
There are some sightings of individuals from Changi and Seletar East Camp, as well as another recent sighting of an individual at the Lorong Halus Wetland . . .
Like the one ( refers to the sighting of another boar; the editor) at Lorong Halus, I would think that it's most likely to have swam over from Pulau Ubin. We all know that Pulau Ubin is currently a stronghold for this species, and not many people are aware that pigs are excellent swimmers . . .
There's a population of feral pigs in the Bahamas that have a habit of swimming out to sea to greet people in boats and beg for food.
Still, if the Tampines wild boar swam over from Pulau Ubin, I wonder why it wandered so far inland, instead of making itself at home along the coast at Pasir Ris . . .
It's unknown if the illegal fuel station has been around for a long time, but I guess the wild boar was eventually attracted by the prospect of scavenging leftovers, or people started deliberately feeding it. Over the years, the result is a habituated wild boar, completely used to the presence of people, and tame enough to take an afternoon nap beneath a fuel tank. In many ways, it's an echo of how wild boar were first tamed and then domesticated thousands of years ago, giving rise to the many breeds of domestic pigs we see today.
Of course, another possible scenario is that someone smuggled in a pet boar and allowed it to run loose. We may never know for sure. (http://lazy-lizard-tales.blogspot.com/2011/10/wild-boar-in-tampines.html:10/19/2011)
PJJ
