Invasive wild pigs spotted in national park for first time at Alberta’s Elk Island

Although Elk Island is so far the only national park with feral hogs — a hybrid of domestic pigs and European wild boar — Parks Canada said others are likely to follow.

One of the most destructive and rapidly spreading invasive species on the continent has been found for the first time in a Canadian national park.

Wild pigs, which tear up landscapes and eat everything from roots to bird eggs to deer, are regularly present in Elk Island National Park east of Edmonton, says Parks Canada.

“Public sightings and video sightings provided by landowners confirm that there is at least one sounder (a sow and piglets) in the region that is known to periodically come into the park,” said spokeswoman Janelle Verbruggen.

Wild pigs were brought to Saskatchewan and Alberta in the 1990s to help farms diversify. Some escaped.

About half of Saskatchewan’s 296 rural municipalities now have wild pigs, said Ryan Brook of the Canadian Wild Pig Research Project based at the University of Saskatchewan.

Their range spreads over nearly 800,000 square kilometres, mostly on the Prairies.

In Alberta, pigs have been spotted in 28 counties, said Perry Abramenko, who runs the Alberta government’s pig removal program.

“The number of reports received is increasing every year,” he said. “Nobody can come up with whether there’s hundreds or thousands.”