Feral pigs are biological time bombs. Can California stem their ‘exponential’ damage?
SAN JOSE — Dana Page is no cold-blooded killer. She loves animals, sunshine and public lands.
But Page says “depredation” must be part of the toolkit to prevent wild pigs from ripping up Santa Clara County’s parks, tearing up lawns, fouling rivers and reservoirs, and killing native fauna such as red-legged frogs and California tiger salamanders.
“It’s hard to sit back and watch the destruction,” said Page, natural resource program coordinator for Santa Clara County Parks.
California’s feral pig population has become a monumental headache for government land managers, farmers, homeowners, conservation biologists and water district officials.
Feral pigs are like roving rototillers, using their snouts and hooves to unearth dirt-dwelling insect larvae and eat acorns, invertebrates, eggs, small mammals and plants. Their feeding patterns not only cause enormous ecological damage, but the end product — their poop — poses an even further threat. These generously sized mammals — adults range from 150 to 500 pounds — are known to spread more than 30 infectious diseases, 20 of which can be transmitted to humans, including leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis and tularemia.
In 2006, food safety officials pointed to feral swine as causing
an E. coli outbreak in spinach from Salinas Valley. And water regulators and engineers are wary about the pigs contaminating reservoirs and rivers, as well.
Nationwide, wild hogs also inflicted harm more directly — by injuring, and in rare instances, killing people.
https://www.latimes.com/california/...s-ravage-california-wildlands-suburbs-hunting
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