Feral swine seminar set in Havre for Tuesday

At the 4-H Chuckwagon Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Havre a seminar will be held on feral swine and their negative environmental impacts as the populations continue to expand in Canada and threaten to eventually move into the northern tier of Montana.

The event, part of a tour put on by Montana State University Extension, the Montana Department of Livestock, the USDA Wildlife Service and the Montana Invasive Species Council, will also be in Chinook at 3 p.m. in the Chinook Senior Center, 324 Pennsylvania St., that same day.

MSU Hill County Extension Agent Colleen Pegar said there have been sightings of wild pigs in areas north of the Hi-Line, but there are no populations living in Montana, though that may eventually change as the population in Canada continues to grow. This could be a huge problem for landowners and agriculture producers especially.

“They are very destructive and they can reproduce very quickly,” Pegar said of the animals.

She said they are omnivorous animals that root around in the ground and can disrupt huge swaths of land, putting agriculture producer’s livelihoods at serious risk.

A press release about the event said they can also carry swine brucellosis, pseudorabies, tuberculosis and parasites, which can impact the livestock industry, as well as zoonotic diseases that can transfer to humans.

The release said the animals can also contaminate water sources and disrupt ecosystems in general, jeopardizing native wildlife as well as young livestock which can be prey for them.

MSU Extension Wildlife Specialist Jared Beaver said in the press release about the event they are a particularly troublesome invasive species, that are remarkably adaptable and intelligent, with few natural predators, as well as extremely difficult to control once they have established a population somewhere.

“They have been declared one of the biggest threats to terrestrial biodiversity in the world and are expanding across the United States and Canada,” he said.

Pegar said the event will be about the animals and the best way to deal with them.

At the Havre stop, she said, they will also have a brief presentation about ground squirrel management on large areas of land by Montana Department of Agriculture Vertebrate Pest Specialist Stephen Vantassel.