Categories: News

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. 

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

6 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

3 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

3 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

3 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

3 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago