The hunt for wild pigs is a mix of new technology and old-fashion hunting techniques.
Several methods were covered during a discussion at the Wild Pig Summit in Brandon this week.
Over 1,200 wild pigs have been killed in Saskatchewan since 2018.
Leanne Heisler is the Feral Wild Boar Program Co-Ordinator with Sask Crop Insurance. She stated the "bait and corral" method has been effective.
"So we put the bait out to get them used to coming into an area, and then we set up our trap without our gate on it to get them used to coming into the trap. And then once we put the gate on, the gate is remotely triggered, so you wait until all of your pigs that you've observed in the area enter the trap and are comfortable in there, and then you usually drop the gate and then come back the next morning when they're all calm to dispatch."
This method works in the winter when the wild pigs are more likely to take the bait.
Heisler said GIS, or geographic information system, makes it easier to keep tabs on the wild pigs.
"It's uploaded onto a cloud automatically once you submit through a mobile app, and then that provides us with a real-time picture of what's going on on the landscape as you're out monitoring populations. So when it's all mapped out for you, you get a landscape-level perspective of what's happening." she said.
Over in Manitoba, thermal imaging drones are being used.
"I would say thermal imaging drones have really been a game-changer for us. They allow us then to scout areas that would be very difficult to access on foot, and we can cover these areas fairly quickly and identify pigs that show up on a thermal image, and they're quite distinct from deer and other animals." said Wayne Lees with Squeal on Pigs Manitoba.
Alberta is using specially trained night hunters to deal with problem areas.
"Night shooting is treated as a highly planned operation, so this isn't opportunistic hunting. And the targeted individual animals are known in advance. They've been monitored with remote cameras, and in most cases, they've been patterned to come to bait. And we're also always still aiming to remove the entire group that's present to avoid educating wild boar. So to date, we've used this technique for groups of only one or two animals at a time to ensure that we're removing the whole group.” said Hannah MacKenzie, wild boar specialist with Alberta Agriculture.
MacKenzie said the breeding cycle has been interrupted with the removal of more than 30 sows in night hunts since January.
(With files from Neil Billinger, CJWW)
