Wild pigs continue to invade Saskatchewan and Manitoba

Apr 13, 2022

Invasive wild pigs continue to be a concern across the Prairies.

Dr. Ryan Brook, with the University of Saskatchewan, spoke on the issue last week at Manitoba Pork's AGM.

"Anytime you have wild pigs, their potential to explode and become out of control is very, very high. They have huge impacts on the ag sector and the environmental sector, even public health. We need to be very concerned. The numbers are relatively limited across most of Manitoba. There is a high concentration in the Spruce Woods area that's particularly important and they can function as what we call a stronghold. We're seeing this, pigs are dispersing out there on a regular basis and spreading and so there is a real concern for sure."

Brook says Saskatchewan has more than of half of all the wild pigs found across Canada.

"Especially in east/central Saskatchewan, there's one major hotspot that we know has more wild pigs than rest of Canada combined," he noted. "The problem for Manitoba is that hotspot is literally right on the Manitoba border. Manitoba is doing things and moving this forward and talking about it...but Manitoba also has to recognize that pigs can move in from Saskatchewan and so we need to all be rowing in the same direction and coordinating our efforts to make sure that Manitoba is successful inside the province but also being good neighbours as well."

The reason that wild pigs are so hard to control, according to Brook, is that they have a high reproductive rate, they eat almost anything, and are highly elusive. He adds diseases such as African swine fever is one reason the issue is gaining more traction.

In terms of control measures, Brook believes the best approach is to have lots of tools in the toolbox and to use them all. He says hunting is not one of the solutions as the success rate is amazingly low and it tends to spread the pigs around.

"You can either have sport hunting of pigs or you can have eradication, pick one. Right now Manitoba is effectively open season. I think we're going to need to have a serious conversation about changing that if we want to have success."

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”