Although pigs were introduced in North America in the 1500s, Canada’s super pig problem began during the 1980s, when the country began encouraging farmers to raise wild pigs. However, when the market collapsed in 2001, many of these farmers simply cut their fences loose and released the pigs into the wild out of frustration. Unfortunately, some of these pigs were hybrids of wild pigs and domestic pigs. They combined the best qualities of both species, which made them an even bigger threat.
Cross-breeding domestic pigs with wild pigs led to a serious result. These “super pigs” combine the survival skills of the wild Eurasian pigs with the size and high fertility (繁殖能力) of domestic pigs, a combination that is apparently almost impossible to control. Not only are they capable of surviving cold climates by tunneling under snow, but they also destroy crops, feed on animals of all sizes, and spread deadly diseases. They breed at a rate that makes them extremely hard to control.
Super pigs can survive in the harshest of conditions thanks to an ability to adapt to virtually any situation. They are not only highly resistant (抗……的) to extreme temperatures but also intelligent enough to avoid human hunters. “They’re incredibly intelligent,” Ryan Brook, a Canadian expert, said. “When there’s any pressure on them, especially if people start hunting them, they become almost completely active at night, and they become very elusive — hiding in heavy forest cover, and they disappear into wetlands and they can be very hard to locate.” What’s more, super pigs reproduce extremely quickly. Their numbers would still increase.
“They’re so widespread, that certainly as late as 2018 or 2019 I stopped saying that eradication (根除) was possible, they’re just so established,” Professor Ryan Brook said. “They’ve definitely moved in, and they’re here to stay.” Some Canadian states have abandoned the idea of wiping out super pigs entirely, instead focusing on containing them, while US states that border Canada are preparing for an upcoming invasion.
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