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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: January/February 2007

Editorial: Developing compassion for feral pigs

 

Here come the pigs! Nobody expected feral pigs and street pigs to become a ubiquitous humane concern in the early 21st century--but not because of indifference toward pigs. Most people just didn't think of pigs as a free-roaming species who might turn up almost anywhere, capable of thriving without human help. But the timing is right for feral pigs and street pigs to claim humane attention. More pigs may be at large today, worldwide, than ever before. Certainly more pigs are at large in North America.

Pig hunters are all but exempt from most of the laws that govern other forms of hunting, since pigs are considered a non-native invasive nuisance. So-called hog/dog rodeo, in which packs of pit bull terriers are set upon captive feral pigs, has only been illegal in many Southern states for under two years, and--like dogfighting and cockfighting--still has a substantial following.

The technology exists to control and perhaps eliminate unwanted feral pig populations without bloodshed. The leading immunocontraceptive approach to animal birth control is based on porcine zona pellucida, PZP for short, a slaughterhouse byproduct. Though PZP proved ineffective and impractical for use with dogs and cats, it is now widely used to control wild horse herds, zoo animal fecundity, and--experimentally--urban deer. Zona pellucida cells from another species would be needed to achieve immunocontraception among pigs, but at this point there are few animals, including humans, whose reproductive biochemistry is better understood than that of pigs.

Most important, while pigs are institutionally mistreated by the pork industry at the rate of 60 million per year in the U.S. alone, almost entirely out of public view, the climate of public opinion has never been more favorable to individual pigs, with names and familiar faces, like many of the "problem pigs" now patrolling semi-rural suburbs.

The classic children's story Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White, has raised compassion for pigs since 1952-first as a book, then as a 1973 animated film, now in 2006 as a computer-generated live action film, endorsed and promoted by the Humane Society of the U.S.

Increasing humane awareness of pigs was already an integral if indirect aspect of producing the newest version of Charlotte's Web, after Paramount Pictures donated a substantial but undisclosed sum to Animals Australia in exchange for help in adopting out the 40 trained pigs used to make the film. In early November 2006, Animals Australia and allied organizations reportedly invested $500,000 Australian dollars in billboard and women's magazine advertising against factory pig farming. Eight magazines and one billboard company rejected the ads, which were then published in newspapers instead--and the fracas attracted newspaper coverage.

Three other films featuring pigs who evade slaughter have become recent hits: Babe (1995), Gordy (1995), and Babe: Pig In The City (1998). Actor James Cromwell, who starred in the Babe films as Farmer Hoggett, became a vegetarian and animal advocate.

Such pro-pig popular literature has a long pedigree. Twenty-five years before E.B. White produced Charlotte's Web, Walter R. Brooks from 1927 to 1958 raised consciousness about pigs in his 28-volume series about the adventures of Freddy the Pig and his upstate New York farmyard friends, who evaded slaughter time and again by acting as human-like as possible. Meat-eaters in the early stories, Freddy and the farm owners, Mr. and Mrs. Bean, eventually became somewhat reluctant and inconsistent quasi-vegetarians. Soon afterward, the Freddy books lapsed from favor as longtime staples of school libraries.

Humane literature evolved into addressing how real-life pigs are raised and slaughtered after the 1964 publication of Animal Factories, by Ruth Harrison, and the 1967 formation of Compassion In World Farming by the late Peter Roberts. Banning gestation crates, in which pregnant and nursing sows are imprisoned, was for Roberts an enduring focus.

Pet pigs splashed into humane awareness after the Vietnam War, when the pampered potbellied pigs carried to safety by some of the Vietnamese "boat people" fleeing the Communist regime attracted media coverage, caught the fancy of pet breeders, and became a heavily promoted fad animal. A network of mostly overwhelmed and underfunded pig sanctuaries formed in response to frequent pig abandonment.

The sanctuaries that survived the inevitable shakeout are now "finding an increased number of rescued farm pigs needing sanctuary space," explained Pig Preserve founders Richard and Laura Hoyle in an October 2006 letter to ANIMAL PEOPLE. "As the public becomes more attuned to the plight of the factory farmed pigs," the Hoyles wrote, "many more are being rescued by animal rights groups and private citizens. So now, in addition to rescuing and caring for the thousands of "dumped" miniature pigs, we are asked to take in a steadily increasing number of full-sized farm pigs."

Feral pigs emerged as an early concern of the Fund for Animals, during the 25-year effort of the U.S. Navy, Nature Conservancy, and National Park Service to extirpate pigs from San Clemente Island and the Channel Islands, off the southern California coast. Some rescued pigs from the California coastal islands were transported to the Black Beauty Ranch in northeastern Texas during the 1970s and 1980s, but their rescues attracted far less attention than the Fund's earlier rescues of burros from San Clemente and the Grand Canyon.

Later, in 1991-1993, PETA cofounder Alex Pacheco tried to drum up opposition to Nature Conservancy tactics against feral pigs in Hawaii, including aerial shooting and setting snares in which caught pigs died slowly, over many days. In Defense of Animals protested against cruel methods of pig extermination in the hills surrounding San Francisco Bay. The Suwanna Ranch sanctuary operated by the Humane Farming Association took in several pigs who went feral after escaping from human custody or being abandoned.

Yet feral pigs as a nationally spreading ecological issue and animal welfare problem largely eluded the humane community--and largely eluded wildlife managers, as well, whose first recognition of the presence of feral pigs has usually come several pig generations after they became established, when they emerge as a widely distributed public nuisance.

No set of institutions enthusiastically claims responsibility for feral pigs in the U.S., as in most of the world. While licensed pig hunting may generate some revenue, feral pig activities tend to be more problematic than lucrative. Agricultural agencies see feral pigs as an uncontrolled and unpredictable disease vector. Public health and safety agencies want someone to respond to pig complaints, as to dog and cat complaints, but even when animal control is under their umbrella, animal control agencies mostly lack experienced pig catchers and handlers, holding facilities suitable for pigs, and vehicles that can haul them.

The advent of central garbage collection and enclosed sewage systems eliminated free-roaming pigs from most U.S. and European cities many decades ago. Until recently, feral pigs were found only in remote rural regions, like the hills of Arkansas, whose wild razorbacks were considered a quaint artifact.

But that was before long-haul pig trucking and frequent highway accidents gave thousands of pigs the opportunity to bolt from ruptured trailers in habitat of every sort, before raising European boars for confined hunting operations became commonplace, and before hints emerged that some ardent pig-hunters might be deliberately translocating feral pigs to try to expand pig hunting opportunities.

That was also before free-roaming dogs declined from 30% of the U.S. dog population circa 1950 to about 25% in the mid-1970s, to under 5% today.

Dogs, rats, & pigs

Nature abhors a void, so when dogs no longer roam at large, their habitat niches are claimed by other species.

Usually the first replacements are cats, already present and relatively abundant. Where free-roaming dogs dominate the habitat by day, consuming most of the edible refuse, catching many of the rats and mice, cats tend to be nocturnal, inclined to live on roofs and balconies, rarely descending to risk canine pursuit. As soon as the dogs disappear, however, many cats become diurnal, replacing dogs at a typical ratio of three cats for each dog who is no longer there--about the body mass ratio of average cats to typical street dogs.

Communities that never before noticed cats may suddenly discover that they have enough feral cats to be problematic. Examples include Hong Kong, the developed parts of Costa Rica, much of the U.S. during the past 20 years, and the many Indian cities where Animal Birth Control programs have sharply reduced the abundance of street dogs.

But cats are not quite a perfect replacement for dogs. The very attributes that enable cats to coexist among street dogs tend to leave significant habitat niches vacant. For example, as pure predators, cats rarely scavenge. When dogs are removed from urban habitat, most of the scavenging role may be left to mice and rats, who formerly were among the dogs' prey.

Mice and rats quickly breed up to the newly expanded carrying capacity of any habitat from which dogs have been removed--especially if dogs are no longer eating them. However, even if humans refrained from poisoning mice and rats in response to any visible abundance, mice and rats are not well-adapted to holding habitat. Instead, they attract other predators such as jackals, coyotes, foxes, and birds of prey in place of dogs, while accessible refuse draws in larger or more evasive scavengers--such as pigs, monkeys, and gulls--who can fend off or escape the predators.

In effect, the previous role of dogs as scavengers and rodent predators is replaced by mice-plus-cats-plus-rats-plus whatever else comes. The simple scavenging habitat niche becomes a complex food chain, in which the especially complex role of rats tends to be overlooked because it mostly occurs beyond human view.

Like dogs, rats will eat almost anything. Also like dogs, rats can become predators if conditions favor predation. Where mice are abundant, rats tend to become voracious nest predators of "pinky" mice.
Further, the rat population may be virtually unchecked by cats, no matter how many cats there are, because while cats are probably the most efficient of all predators of adult mice, few cats will risk pouncing on a full-grown rat if other food is available.

Rats could in theory totally replace the roles of street dogs, and in cities with modern sanitation, where the scavenging niche is reduced and scattered to the point that roving dogs have a hard time making a living, this is what tends to happen. Where dogs once roamed the streets, rats patrol inside the walls of high-rise buildings. Though feral cats are more visible, rats outnumber them, thousands to one.

Until the scavenging niche is reduced and diminished, however, removing dogs from the habitat has a different outcome.

In Asian, African, and Latin American cities, especially those without closed sewage systems and frequent trash collection, where refuse remains sufficiently accessible to support street dogs, pigs and monkeys tend to be the ultimate beneficiaries of reducing the dog population. Though both pigs and monkeys can kill dogs in fights which could go either way, pigs and monkeys tend to run from dogs rather than take chances. Otherwise, the major threats to pigs and monkeys in most urban habitat are motor vehicles. Neither pigs nor monkeys have anything to fear from cats, or rats.
Neither do pigs and monkeys tend to be very afraid of people, unless the people are armed. Then, both pigs and monkeys tend to learn how to distinguish armed people from unarmed people, just as they learn to distinguish vulnerable humans carrying groceries from those who have nothing edible to drop, who may fight back if menaced.

In U.S. cities, where closed sewage systems and frequent refuse collection prevail, the food sources most accessible to urban wildlife tend to be yard vegetation. While dogs do not eat yard plants, they do chase other animals out of yards and out of the neighborhood, if they can. Removing free-roaming dogs from the habitat typically allows urban wildlife to exploit the vegetation undisturbed, if they just stay out of the fenced yards where dogs remain.

Raccoons, occupying approximately the same habitat niche in North America that monkeys hold in India, are among the most ubiquitous beneficiaries. Nowhere in the wild are raccoons as abundant as they have become in U.S. suburbs, at population densities as great as 300 per square mile in parts of New England.

Other species who are now more abundant in U.S. suburbs than in the wild include both whitetailed and blacktailed deer, and opossums, whose expansion of range into the northern half of the U.S. closely followed the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s and 1960s. Occupying a relatively limited habitat niche at first, opossums have proliferated during the past several decades in approximate inverse to the frequency with which dogs are picked up for running at large.

The conditions conducive to pig proliferation in the U.S., Britain, and other developed nations where fast-expanding feral pig populations have become troublesome are not quite the same as the conditions that enable pigs to take over vacated dog habitat in much of Asia. Yet there are similarities.

To a pig, a marketplace full of discarded fruits and vegetables differs little from a yard full of windfallen fruit from ornamental trees and hedges. Muddy roadside ditches are wonderful travel corridors.

Pigs make themselves equally at home among cornfields, orchards, refuse piles, and forests full of fallen acorns and fungi. Almost anywhere suits a pig, if the pig has food, mud, and companions. A combination of high intelligence, easy satisfaction, and litter sizes averaging more than twice the average dog litter size make pigs at least as potentially ubiquitous as dogs.

If tolerated, pigs will sleep in the sunshine, in full view of all. If responded to with humane consideration, pigs can become good neighbors, occupying their present limited ecological niche, potentially controlled by immunocontraceptive baits.

If pigs are hunted, on the other hand, they will spend daytime in deep dens, foraging and traveling only at night. The cleverness and reproductive potential that enabled pigs to evade extermination on small rocky islands for 25 years will ensure that even the most aggressive and ruthless efforts to kill them all will fail--indeed, pigs have never been lastingly extirpated from any habitat other than small islands--and will ensure, as well, that the plight of feral pigs will attract increasing humane attention in coming decades.

Beyond practical considerations, demonstrating concern for feral pigs could help to set a persuasive example to the public and to agribusiness of how pigs ought to be treated--and perhaps hasten the day when pig-eating is looked upon with the same revulsion that most of the world now feels toward dog and cat eating.