Our Michigan rep and good friend, Raven, has a new post at her blog on her research into the issue of Feral Pigs. Check it out!
As she says in part:
"One of the mounting concerns with recent wild boar explosions, is that of whether they are a catalyst in the recent spread of H1N1, better known as "Swine flu". While there has been no direct connection to H1N1, feral hogs are known to carry at least 13 different diseases, including anthrax, and tubercullosis. Now, a new threat seems to be on the rise as the invaders make their way across the land. It is that of the disease called"Pseudorabies",which is another name given to the porcine herpesvirus1. The name pseudorabies comes from the rabies-like symptoms it was noted to cause in rabbits who had contracted the disease."
The idea of feral pigs is not always a pleasant one, but I suspect the pig is a much maligned animal in general. The truth of the matter is the pig is a pleasant animal (Chipperfield, the circus man, declared the main trouble was that most pigs were killed before they attained their intellectual peak). Pigs are not naturally dirty - you wouldn't be that clean if forced to live in a small sty. Pigs can be house-trained and kept as house pets. I know of one account where a pig actually saved its owner's life when she had a heart attack. Of course, I wouldn't like to encounter a pig with symptoms akin to rabies, but I feel our swinish friend has a bad image which it is incumbent on me to redress. And where better than this?
ReplyDeleteRonan Coghlan.
We have wild boars here in northern Pennsylvania now. Their status is a tough one, with some counties allowing you to kill them at will and some instituting a standard hunting season. They initially escaped from hunting preserves upstate.
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