The “feral swine bomb” is ticking
Scientists are bracing for a “feral swine bomb” as wild pigs reproduce and rapidly spread out across more and more land each year, Undark reports. With populations at an estimated 9 million in the U.S., local authorities have sought to regulate pig populations by shooting them from helicopters and setting out massive rat poison traps. So far, it hasn’t worked. And while feral hogs are plenty destructive right now, they pose an even greater potential threat to farmers in the future: They’re known for spreading African Swine Fever, a pig pandemic that decimated herds in China and has since crept as far westward as Germany. Danish farmers are so afraid their pigs will be infected from migrating boar that they’ve built a literal wall across their border. The disease has not reached North America.
