Hog wild in PA

PENNSYLVANIA — State, federal and private groups are collaborating to assess the seriousness of Pennsylvania’s wild pig problem.

In light of a recently released Pennsylvania Game Commission report documenting wild hogs living in 11 counties—and breeding in at least two of those—along with past evidence that they existed in four other counties, the state is at a crossroads with feral pigs, according to Dave Wolfgang, extension veterinarian in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

“The reason Pennsylvania’s pork producers are so concerned is that feral pigs are reservoirs for diseases such as pseudorabies, swine brucellosis and trichinosis,” Wolfgang explained. “Our animal agriculture people have worked hard to stamp out those diseases, but they could be reintroduced into domestic herds from wild pigs.”

A team from the Wildlife Services Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will collect feral hogs in three areas of the state by trapping and shooting, and Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture technicians will collect blood and tissue samples from the animals to be tested for infectious diseases.

The effort is being funded by $60,000 in grants from the USDA and the Pennsylvania Pork Producers Council, according to a report recently issued by Penn State University’s College of Agriculture. Samples will be tested by the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostics Laboratory System, which includes labs at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture facility in Harrisburg, at Penn State’s University Park campus and at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center.

The PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources staff with the Wild Resource Conservation Program (WRCP) have been talking to local partners in Bedford County about developing a grass-roots citizen-based monitoring effort to help document presence/absence of feral swine and their impacts on the forest ecosystem.

“Based on studies done in southern states like Georgia and South Carolina, feral pigs can cause great harm to native forest species, “ said WRCP director Sara Nicholas. “Depending on the numbers of feral pigs, you would expect similar damage to occur here in Pennsylvania.”