Today started with a good old fashioned google search for one of my favorite subjects: mankind’s inability to stop cramming invasive critters into new and entirely uncontained biological niches.
You already know where this story takes place.
Today’s Moment of Science… 30-50 feral hogs.
Once upon a time, the animal life down under existed in balance. Probably, idk, the wifi sucked back then. The supercontinent Gondwana unceremoniously yeeted Australia out about 180 million years ago (mya). Unique little Australians appeared in the fossil records as early as 120 mya, but it remained connected to Antarctica for another eighty million years. A chunk of earth previously ruled by monotremes, the first mouse-sized marsupial arrived from South America via this Antarctic connection not long before it was severed. In the grandest of Darwinian laboratories, hippo-sized marsupials and sheep-sized echidnas evolved to duke it out for resources in the prehistoric outback.
Without too much poking from the outside world, the monotremes with four-headed penises, thorny devils, vermicious knids, bandicoots, and the goddamn cassowaries were doing… well, they were doing all sorts of horrifying shit to each other. But eventually they came to somewhat of a “marsupials run this bitch” understanding, and everyone stopped mucking up the place for a few million years.
Then behold: imperialism.
Pigs were first dropped into Australia in 1777 by Captain James Cook. This one incident was not responsible for the landscape of pork chops Australia is dealing with today though; pigs were brought to the continent at several points during colonization. First Fleet in 1788 brought a handful of animals that would eventually wreak havoc on the local ecology, including brumbies, goats, and the goddamn Brits. They brought pigs for livestock and, as someone who prays to the church of bbq, I can’t be too mad.
But somehow after building and sailing all those ships to the other side of the planet, the English couldn’t build a pigpen worth a fuck. Highly successful breeders, Australia’s 25 million strong feral hog population is largely descended from eighteenth century bacon stock.
Today they can be found throughout about 45% of the mainland and scattered on a few islands, clever piggies. An uncured disaster, they’re responsible for ravaging crops, feasting on livestock, and spreading plant pathogens. Though they deal with predation from dingoes and large birds of prey, they’re winning the overall land battle and hogging resources from native species. They also severely damage the land by digging up entire root systems in search of snacks. This has contributed precipitously to soil erosion and the destruction of other animals’ habitats.
Japanese encephalitis virus was detected in Australia’s livestock earlier this year, and was confirmed in the feral pig population this month. The most common sign of the virus in pigs is stillborn or weak piglets. Symptoms in humans can include fever, stiff neck, confusion, seizures, paralysis, and death. It can be transmitted via mosquito bites, and fortunately most cases in humans are completely asymptomatic. But that doesn’t feel entirely comforting given that a symptomatic case means your neurons are on fire. Out of thirty confirmed cases in humans so far in this outbreak, there have been four fatalities.
Fortunately, there’s a vaccine. And bug spray.
So, in the grand tradition of ‘Australia going to war with livestock and probably losing,’ what’s being done about the brain fever oinklets?
The array of containment techniques seems endless and, unfortunately, fruitless. Exclusion fencing. Trapping. Shooting them. Shooting them from a helicopter. Baiting and poisoning. Baiting and poisoning them from a helicopter.
It all works. For a little while.
One report from 1980 analyzing previous poisoning campaigns showed that a 58% reduction in feral pigs rebounded within a year. There’s now a proposed national action plan that aims to have the population under control by 2031 with a combination of strategies. Indeed, the numbers could be lowered with an extreme degree of constant vigilance. But if history is any indicator- and it frequently is- the loser of this particular pig war will not be the pigs.
This has been your Moment of Science, putting in an early request for a baby hippopotamus-sized marsupial for Christmas.
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