Boar–pig hybrid | |
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A male boar-pig hybrid | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Family: | Suidae |
Subfamily: | Suinae |
Genus: | Sus |
Species: | |
Boar–pig hybrid is a hybridized offspring of a cross between the Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) and any domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus). Feral hybrids exist throughout Eurasia, the Americas, Australia, and in other places where European settlers imported wild boars to use as game animals. In many areas, a variable mixture of these hybrids and feral pigs of all-domesticated original stock (even environmental, agricultural, hunting, and other regulatory agencies often do not bother distinguishing between them) have become invasive species. Their status as pest animals has reached crisis proportions in Australia, parts of Brazil, and parts of the United States, and the animals are often freely hunted in hopes of eradicating them or at least reducing them to a controllable population.
When bred intentionally, the hybrid is intended to visually recreateto —"back-breed"— the look of pigs represented in prehistoric artworks of the Iron Age and earlier in ancient Europe. A project to create them, under the name Iron Age pig, started in the early 1980s by crossing a male wild boar with a Tamworth sow to produce an animal that looks like the pig from long ago. [1] Iron Age pigs are generally only raised in Europe for the specialty meat market, and in keeping with their heritage are generally more aggressive and harder to handle than purebred domesticated pigs. [1]
Feral pigs in general are considered to be the most important mammalian pest of Australian agriculture [2] (a difficult title to hold, given the country's long-running invasive rabbit problem). However, it is unclear to what extent they are hybrids. Known hybridization between wild and domesticated pigs has occurred naturally in the country for a long time, with populations of the wild boar (imported by European settlers for hunting) freely interbreeding with domestic pigs, either where the latter escaped and became feral, or where there is reasonable access by wild boars to penned pig populations. The appearance and temperament of the wild boar is dominant, and after three generations of interbreeding, most domesticated characteristics disappear.[ citation needed ] Prior to closure of the meat export market, Australian hunters with the appropriate qualifications and certificates sold hybrid and feral pig meat to be exported to specialty meat markets in Russia and Italy.[ citation needed ]
In Sweden, farmers have reported wild boars breaking into pens and mating with pig sows, even going through electric fences to do so. One pig farmer, Oskar Ohlson, claimed to have over 100 hybrid piglets. These he described as not being aggressive, but jumping when stressed unlike regular pigs. [3]
Suine hybrids, known as razorbacks, range throughout the United States and Canada as feral populations. Their genetic makeup varies widely from area to area, from being all-domestic to a mix of recent domestic with long-feral pigs that have partially reverted to wild traits to an interbreeding of both with wild boars that, as in Australia, were apparently imported [4] for hunting during the colonial era and in the southern United States were definitely re-introduced from Russia for hunting as recently as the 1990s. [5] Razorbacks have been hunted for sport for centuries. Because of their increasing numbers (at least 6 million in 2014, [6] having approximately tripled since 1990 [5] ), in more recent decades they have been hunted more programmatically to reduce their impact as an invasive species; they have become a pest animal responsible for significant agricultural and property damage [6] and environmental harm, especially in the U.S. Deep South from Florida [7] to Texas; [8] The Southwestern Naturalist estimated about 2.6 million free-roaming porcines in Texas in 2013, [9] which may cast doubt on the 6-million nationwide estimate. A 2014 Outdoor Alabama article termed them "wildlife enemy number one" in that state. [10] They have become problematic even in cooler, forested northern states (and into Canada); a particular conservation problem is that they strip plant life in woodland areas of their berries and other nutrients needed by the native American black bear. [11] Wisconsin, for example, imposes no hunting restrictions of any kind on them to promote their elimination. [12] Only a few animals are large enough to prey on hybrid and feral pigs, and are too few in individual numbers to control their population. [13]
Free-ranging Eurasian pigs that have also been problematic in Hawaii, a U.S. state in the Pacific Ocean and far from the mainland, are apparently of all-domesticated stock (simply feral pigs, not hybrids) and were brought by early European visitors. [14]
Domesticated pigs were introduced to the Americas and allowed to become feral from the 16th century onward, beginning with Christopher Columbus in the West Indies. [15] Actual wild boars were introduced in the early 20th century into Uruguay, again for hunting, and have since spread into Brazil, where they have been deemed an invasive species since at least 1994, [16] especially in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo. Since 2005, [17] Brazil has issued hunting licenses for hybrid and feral pigs, and expanded this hunting program in 2008. [18]
Unrelated, smaller, and entirely wild suids, known as peccaries or javelinas, range throughout Latin America into the U.S. Southwest, are native to western hemisphere, and are not pest animals, though they compete for resources with hybrid and feral pigs. The dynamics between these populations are not yet well studied. Jaguars appear to prefer boar/pig over peccary prey when available. [19]
Sus is the genus of wild and domestic pigs, within the even-toed ungulate family Suidae. Sus include domestic pigs and their ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar, along with other species. Sus species, like all suids, are native to the Eurasian and African continents, ranging from Europe to the Pacific islands. Suids other than the pig are the babirusa of Indonesia, the pygmy hog of South Asia, the warthogs of Africa, and other pig genera from Africa. The suids are a sister clade to peccaries.
The wild boar, also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is now one of the widest-ranging mammals in the world, as well as the most widespread suiform. It has been assessed as least concern on the IUCN Red List due to its wide range, high numbers, and adaptability to a diversity of habitats. It has become an invasive species in part of its introduced range. Wild boars probably originated in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene and outcompeted other suid species as they spread throughout the Old World.
A peccary is a pig-like ungulate of the family Tayassuidae. They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North America. They usually measure between 90 and 130 cm in length, and a full-grown adult usually weighs about 20 to 40 kg. They represent the closest relatives of the family Suidae, which contains pigs and relatives. Together Tayassuidae and Suidae are grouped in the suborder Suina within the order Artiodactyla.
A feral animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some cases, contributed to extinction of indigenous species. The removal of feral species is a major focus of island restoration.
Breeding back is a form of artificial selection by the deliberate selective breeding of domestic animals, in an attempt to achieve an animal breed with a phenotype that resembles a wild type ancestor, usually one that has gone extinct. Breeding back is not to be confused with dedomestication.
Hog-dog rodeo or hog-dogging, is a spectator event that simulates wild or feral boar hunting with dogs. It requires specially trained and bred "hog dogs" that are used to bay and sometimes catch a hog or boar. In most cases, bay dogs psychologically control the pig and no physical contact occurs. In some cases, however, such as Uncle Earl's Hog Dog Trials, along with bay dog events, catch dog events have been included in the past. In these, specially bred and equipped dogs caught and held the hog by the ears before the animals were quickly separated by a person who hog-tied the pig.
Game or quarry is any wild animal hunted for animal products, for recreation ("sporting"), or for trophies. The species of animals hunted as game varies in different parts of the world and by different local jurisdictions, though most are terrestrial mammals and birds. Fish caught non-commercially are also referred to as game fish.
A feral pig is a domestic pig which has gone feral, meaning it lives in the wild. The term feral pig has also been applied to wild boars, which can interbreed with domestic pigs. They are found mostly in the Americas and Australia. Razorback and wild hog are Americanisms applied to feral pigs or boar–pig hybrids.
The domestication of vertebrates is the mutual relationship between vertebrate animals including birds and mammals, and the humans who have influence on their care and reproduction.
The pig, often called swine, hog, or domesticpig when distinguishing from other members of the genus Sus, is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of Sus scrofa or a distinct species. The pig's head-plus-body length ranges from 0.9 to 1.8 m, and adult pigs typically weigh between 50 and 350 kg, with well-fed individuals even exceeding this range. The size and weight of hogs largely depends on their breed. Compared to other artiodactyls, a pig's head is relatively long and pointed. Most even-toed ungulates are herbivorous, but pigs are omnivores, like their wild relative. Pigs grunt and make snorting sounds.
The bushpig is a member of the pig family that inhabits forests, woodland, riverine vegetation and cultivated areas in East and Southern Africa. Probably introduced populations are also present in Madagascar. There have also been unverified reports of their presence on the Comoro island of Mayotte. Bushpigs are mainly nocturnal. There are several subspecies.
The pygmy hog is the rarest species of pig in the world today, and is the only species in the genus Porcula. It is also the smallest species of pig in the world. Endemic to India, the pygmy hog is a suid native of the alluvial grasslands in the foothills of the Himalayas, at elevations of up to 300 m (980 ft). Populations of pygmy hogs were once widespread in the tall, dense, wet grasslands in a narrow belt of the southern Himalayan foothills from north-western Uttar Pradesh to Assam, through southern Nepal and North Bengal, and possibly extending into contiguous habitats in southern Bhutan. Due to human encroachment and destruction of the pygmy hogs’ natural habitat, the species was thought to have gone extinct in the early 1960s. However, in 1971, a small pygmy hog population was rediscovered as they were fleeing a fire near the Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam. Today, the only known population of pygmy hogs resides in Manas National Park in Assam, India. The population is threatened by livestock grazing, fires and poaching. With an estimated population of less than 250 mature individuals, the pygmy hog is listed as an Endangered species on the IUCN Red List, and conservation efforts such as captive breeding and re-release programs are currently being employed.
Monster Pig was the subject of a controversial 2007 story that initially ran in the news media as a report of an 11-year-old boy shooting a massive feral pig. The pig was claimed to have been shot during a hunt on May 3, 2007, by an 11-year-old boy named Jamison Stone. The location of the shooting was the Lost Creek Plantation, a commercial hunting preserve outside Anniston, Alabama, US. According to the hunters, the pig weighed 1,051 pounds (477 kg) and measured 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) in length.
The Celebes warty pig, also called Sulawesi warty pig or Sulawesi pig, is a species in the pig genus (Sus) that lives on Sulawesi in Indonesia. It survives in most habitats and can live in altitudes of up to 2,500 m (8,000 ft). It has been domesticated and introduced to a number of other islands in Indonesia.
Boar hunting is the practice of hunting wild boar, feral pigs, warthogs, and peccaries. Boar hunting was historically a dangerous exercise due to the tusked animal's ambush tactics as well as its thick hide and dense bones rendering them difficult to kill with premodern weapons.
The Auckland Island pig is a feral landrace of domestic pig found on subantarctic Auckland Island, New Zealand. Its ancestors have inhabited the island since 1807, and, as an invasive species, has had a considerable environmental impact.
The feral goat is the domestic goat when it has become established in the wild. Feral goats occur in many parts of the world.
A wild pig may be:
The banded pig also known as the Indonesian wild boar is a subspecies of wild boar native to the Thai-Malay Peninsula and many Indonesian islands, including Sumatra, Java, and the Lesser Sundas as far east as Komodo. It is known as the wild boar in Singapore. It is the most basal subspecies, having the smallest relative brain size, more primitive dentition, and unspecialised cranial structure. It is a short-faced subspecies with a white band on the muzzle, as well as sparse body hair, no underwool, a fairly long mane, and a broad reddish band extending from the muzzle to the sides of the neck. It is much smaller than the mainland S. s. cristatus subspecies, with the largest specimens on Komodo weighing only 48 kg.
The sale and consumption of pork is mostly illegal in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country where halal dietary guidelines are observed. Being 96% Muslim majority makes pork hard to find. Like alcohol however, the meat may be consumed by non-Muslim citizens and foreigners who reside in the country.