Wild boar produce like rabbits, damage crops like tornadoes

Eyes on the ground are going to be key in getting a better handle on Ontario’s growing wild boar population.

The species is a significant crop pest in the southern United States as well as Western Canada, and sightings of the 200 lb. hogs have been rolling in across Ontario for the past few years, said Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry Research Scientist Erin Koen.

The sightings thus far run the gauntlet from Windsor in Western Ontario to just west of Hawkesbury in Eastern Ontario. There had been 31 reports in five years to iNaturalist, an amateur ecology website where Ontario residents can report wild boar sightings. A trail camera caught a wild hog in May just north of Plantagenet. Last year, boar were spotted on a trail cam southeast of Peterborough and on camera west of Hawkesbury.

But with such incomplete data, it’s impossible to speculate about the size of the population, Koen said. But wild boar are notoriously prolific, and one sow can produce as many as 36 offspring in a year. Alongside her fast-maturing piglets, one sow can be the source of over 100 hogs in two years.

In the U.S. they’re considered to be the most damaging introduced species, and can be problem for both crop and hog farmers: Crop farmers by trampling and eating their crops, and hog farmers by being a reservoir and vector for swine diseases. According to Maclean’s, annual crop damage in the U.S. from wild hogs is US $1.5 billion.

The ministry is trying to get a better handle on where the hogs are, and how many there are, with the aim of putting together a management plan. Farmers who see any wild boar are encouraged to report the sightings via email to MNRF-SpeciesConservationPolicyBranch@ontario.ca or by creating a profile at iNaturalist.org/projects/Ontario-wild-pig-reporting/.