Relaxed hunting rules won't stop wild boar, Sask. researcher says

Hunters in Saskatchewan can now kill wild boar without a licence, but a University of Saskatchewan biologist says more hunting alone is not enough to stop their path of destruction.  

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The government recently amended its wildlife and stray animals regulations to make it easier to hunt boar, which have become a nuisance to farmers in more than 60 rural municipalities in the southern half of the province.

According to the government, the new regulations will address concerns about public safety and protection of wildlife and habitat.

"This is a new tool that will allow hunters to be able to help control the population in farmland and limit the spread of wild boars throughout our province," said government spokesperson Kathy Young in an email.

But University of Saskatchewan biologist Ryan Brook said global experience in other parts of the world suggested increased sport hunting alone would not significantly reduce wild boar populations. 

According to Brook, the animals can bounce back from the impacts of sport hunting because they have a high reproductive rate and very few predators.

"Because of that reproductive rate that's so high, you can be killing half the population every year, and not having that impact," he said. 

Brook said killing only part of a group could do more harm than good because the surviving animals became more elusive and afraid. 

However, he said hunting could play a role in cutting back populations if it was strategic. 

"Finding entire sounder groups and taking them out, so you find 12 animals and you take out all 12," he said. 

"If you find 12 and you kill 10, you say 'well that was a total failure' because you might come back the next year and essentially have 30 pigs." 

Brook added that the U.S. was using large ground traps and hunting teams directed by aircraft or camera intelligence to stop the wild boar. He said the latter method is currently used in Saskatchewan. 

​Wild boar are a non-native species that were brought in from Europe in the 1970s. Some escaped from captivity and reproduced in the wild, creating a problem that has persisted to this day.

According to the province, free-ranging wild boar populations have damaged golf courses and crops, harassed livestock, threatened people and destroyed fragile plant communities.

There are also concerns they can transfer diseases to domestic hogs.