We're not talking about the peachy pigs being raised in farms. Wild pigs, boars, hogs (Sus scrofa) may just simply eat entire ecosystems away if they were to be left on their own. And this is because they are considered extreme generalist foragers which means they can practically eat anything that they can get their hooves on.
Although 90% of their diet consists of plants, they can also eat insects, fungi, clams, and mussels. But more than this, they can apparently engage in predatory behavior as well, killing and eating rodents, deer, birds, snakes, frogs, lizards, and salamanders.
This is the reason why the US has launched initiatives and efforts to control and eradicate these wild pigs, as they can cause wildlife to become extinct, whether directly by predation or indirectly by hogging (pun intended) the resources from other animals.
In fact, just recently, some wild pigs from Canada were reported to have migrated into Minnesota which can make things more difficult. What's so troubling about this is that these wild pigs, called "super pigs", were crossbred to make them larger and hardier than the wild pigs found in the US.
One might think that simply introducing a predator to these wild pigs may assuage the situation. However, these wild pigs apparently have no natural predators, so the only way to get rid of them is to hunt them.
(Image credit: Ed van duijn/Unsplash)
(Video credit: WCCO - CBS Minnesota/Youtube)