As someone who has been…

As someone who has been working on research on invasive wild pigs in Canada for eleven years now I have some experience on the topic and much interest in Ontario's strategy. Overall it is a sound plan that reflects a strong focus on science and the peer-reviewed literature. It is clearly based on extensive consultation and this open process to invite comment is excellent and unique in Canada in the best possible way. As far as I know, Alberta is the only province to have an existing wild pig strategy so Ontario's efforts are at the leading edge in Canada. Key factors in success so far include strong leadership- in my view this is the single most important determinant of success on the wild pig file. Importantly there is no evidence of denial that wild pigs are present- that is important and has helped with overall credibility. There is also much evidence of collaboration among government agencies and with OFAH. There has been a strong focus on science. Very importantly, this plan is proactive and is timely.

Overall, excellent work.

As usual, I’m pretty blunt throughout but I hope my comments are useful.

To my mind, the key outstanding issues I have are:
-need to more thoroughly address the critical distinction between passive and active surveillance and how current results are broadly interpreted-passive surveillance is great but has significant limitations.
-while new regulations all make good sense, they are only as useful as they are enforced- that isn’t addressed much here and maybe doesn’t need to be too much but mentioning the notion of ratcheting up enforcement would add to the plan.
-seems to be a major gap here with respect to Indigenous people and the potential ‘duty to consult’ with respect to how they may affect their food security and importantly verbiage with respect to ending hunting need to be clear (I think they mostly are) but should be explicit that they don’t apply to Indigenous people as that could potentially be interpreted as infringement on their rights (saw this happen with respect to woodland caribou). I expect there will be interest in hunting them and general experience suggests they won’t be very keen on reporting sightings, at least not without meaningful consultation. Its not clear in the document what work has been done on that. At minimum, stating an intention to work more on this would be appropriate in my view. Specific research on Traditional Ecological Knowledge is warranted and is likely the best monitoring option in the boreal forest.
-I believe there is a need for explicit zoning of the province with respect to wild pig occurrences and values at risk, especially where the domestic pigs are and safe to say the far northern part is currently pig free. Each zone could have different approaches to monitoring and focused efforts on the area where the majority of sightings have occurred.

Some specific points to consider:
1. From my view OFAH has played vitally important roles in getting Ontario to this point of having a plan but is not once mentioned in this draft document. I think that is an important oversight that should be rectified. I’m not sure about other groups but seems like OFAH deserves a shout out.
2. On p.5, the wording is good, but I’m concerned about the line “licensed hunters will play an important role in addressing the wild pig problem by assisting with the dispatch of escaped pigs.” I believe this is an important mistake. Research in the US shows sport hunters at best harvest 23% of a population in a given year and monitoring of GPS satellite collars on wild pigs in Western Canada found that hunter harvest of these animals was below 10% over five years. That sport hunters (not sure what you mean by licensed—there are no plans to license for wild pigs correct? Assume you mean hunters with licenses for other harvestable wildlife such as ducks and deer will find them incidentally?). Regardless I believe that any and all removals of wild pigs should be done by trained and experienced teams in all cases, with no exceptions. Any step away from that likely waters down the entire strategy and greatly reduces likelihood of reaching and maintaining eradication.
3. On p.6 I really like action 1.2. lots of great points here. I’m not sure if it is the intention but believe there should be clear and concise regulations with respect to fence materials, mesh size, fence height above ground, fence depth under-ground—things that can be confirmed at inspections. All fencing outdoors should have electric fencing to a minimum design with multiple strands, including grounded strands and at heights that account for snow accumulation in winter. There could also be policy around inspection of all farms. In many provinces there are a number of pig farms that are unknown to any governments so finding and documenting these is critically important, if those policies are not yet in place. Regular inspections should be mandatory as well. What is written is useful but not measurable or enforceable.
4. On p.6 action 1.3. it would be useful to expect/require when pigs escape that this is reported immediately. I understand why the phrase “as soon as possible” was used but wonder if it could be more precise…eg. 24 hours. Again, asap is hard to enforce and doesn’t underscore the urgency of the issue. Pigs can cover a large area in a few days, especially when they are being shot at and this causes them to become nocturnal and hid in heavy cover.
5. On p.7 I like action 1.4 but would encourage some verbiage with respect to making sure that all existing farms are licensed. What about pot-bellied pigs? Is there a way to obtain information from pet stores and have them licensed like cats and dogs so they are registered. Current PigTrace regulations require all animals to have a tattoo or ear tag—in my view it should be both. Tattoos are minimally useful—having good ear tags in both ears is extremely useful and could be colour coded (and RFID) and have large number/letter combinations that could be read from a distance. We’ve used these in moose with great success. When I worked on wild pigs in Spain they were putting microchips in every animal as well and that would be incredibly useful for tracking down the source of animals. Finally, collecting ear punches from domestic animals using the AllFlex tissue sampling units will also be very useful for identifying sources of animals found in the wild-California has done very good work on this and can identify natural movements of animals vs purposeful introductions. This is low cost and the microvials are easy to store.
6. On p.7 action 1.5 is comprehensive and clear. People allowing pot-bellied pigs off leash is an issue as is people dumping them in the wild when they can’t be cared for. I’m aware of some ‘sanctuaries’ in the US that take these animals on rather than see them released to the wild- not sure if any rehab or similar facilities are available to take them? I understand why Action 1.6 is written as it is and it makes sense but I am worried the latter part could leave it too open for interpretation, eg. landowners allowing their hunter friends (or even paying customers) to sport hunt as agents on their behalf..good to keep this potential loophole as limited as possible. Would also encourage communicating to farmers etc again that the only real successful path forward is professional removal of wild pigs-other strategies are low probability undertakings. Assume it is already in regulation but the focus on any use of firearms during daylight hours only should be communicated and enforced.
7. Objective 2 on p.9 is great but note that some breeders are also selling pot-belly x wild boar crosses as well and a wide range of wild boar x domestic pig hybrids across a broad range from mostly wild boar type to mostly domestic pig types so it is not easy to see what these pigs really are comprised of. Are there any zoos or game farms with wild pigs of any type as well that should be considered?
8. Ontario has done an exceptional job of ramping up passive surveillance of wild pigs using a bunch of techniques. However, research in western Canada found that only 1-3% of wild pig occurrences were obtained from this passive surveillance, in large part because wild pigs are often primarily nocturnal, highly elusive, smart, and have a strong focus on using wild areas away from roads and human activity while maximizing time in heavy hiding cover. Importantly wild pigs spend time burrowed under the snow in winter and under vegetation and soil in summer. This means that active monitoring tools like drones, aircraft flights with infrared technology, and especially baited trail cameras are essential for detecting wild pigs. To my view, this is probably one of the most important gaps in the existing plan. I appreciate the proposed use of eDNA—a great tool in the toolbox. While I generally agree with the statement that there is no evidence that there are established wild pigs, given the overall lack of active surveillance that statement should have a caveat, such as ‘given current monitoring efforts’ or similar. Females with young are often much more cautious than singles, especially mature males and so the current monitoring is a lot less likely to detect reproduction-trail cams are the key tool for this. I recall some cams were deployed and there has been an effort to get trail cams from landowners and hunters, which is great.
9. Action 3.3 on p.11 is great, though not sure use of ‘prevalence’ is appropriate since this is a specific epidemiological term and given the current numbers this is not possible to meaningfully quantify. Suggest just focusing on disease testing. What about body condition and other health metrics? Some basic data on body measurements, weights, back fat, kidney fat, bone marrow etc would be really useful.
10. It would be worth noting the importance of efforts in Canada and the U.S. at large scale modeling and mapping.
11. At a few points the phasing out of hunting is mentioned and this makes all kinds of sense but would urge caution with respect to Indigenous hunting rights. Its not entirely clear how these apply to invasive wild pigs but seems likely that any mention of hunting that doesn’t explicitly acknowledge these Indigenous rights could be interpreted negatively and trigger legal challenges. It is worth consulting experts on this. Has there been any formal engagement with First Nations? This is an important gap in the current draft of the strategy and my sense is that this does fall under Duty to Consult.
12. My guess is that that ‘pot-bellied pig’ on p.13 has some wild boar genetics.
13. P.18- some wild pigs are in excess of 200kg even as high as 300 kg
14. P. 20 seems odd to put the Canada maps from most recent to oldest..would suggest reversing that order. I have an updated map that should be also be added for 2021 since the I also have a breakdown of occurrences by province. It is not entirely correct that there is no monitoring in the north..NWT has done some and is ramping up more. There are about 4 farms in the Yukon with several documented escapes over a couple of years, though no established populations in the territories. Small typo in the reference the Aschim paper.. should be Brook, R.K.
15. P. 21 there is not much evidence that water is an effective barrier to wild pig movements, even large bodies. Wild pigs are excellent swimmers and do swim in the ocean in Hawaii to move been islands. They have been photographed swimming across the largest lake in Saskatchewan, with young on their backs so rivers and streams and small lakes are not likely to be barriers at all. Not even sure the St. Lawrence is that much of a barrier to be honest.
16. Lastly, I was surprised that there was no zoning in the plan. There are clearly spatial differences in various parts of Ontario in terms of pig distribution but also values at risk. The ag area seems to be where pigs are almost always found and so are both the highest likelihood of pigs occurring and highest risk of economic impact. I think that there should also be explicit mapping of urban and suburban areas with some secondary focus there as well. Why is there not a map of wild pig occurrences in Ontario? I think the province could and should be zoned into around 5 categories that recognize both pig presence and risk.