When wild boar are at large, they are deemed a pest under the province's Agricultural Pests Act (Photo: dreamstime.com)

By Shaun Penner

Wild Boar Ban

Council aiming to keep wild boar out of County of Grande Prairie

Apr 15, 2020 | 1:41 PM

The County of Grande Prairie is looking to prohibit anyone from keeping wild boars under any circumstance within County boundaries.

Following a request from an individual to start a wild boar operation in the County, Council has directed administration to amend the Animal Control Bylaw to ban such animals from the area.

Reeve Leanne Beaupre says Council’s desire to do this comes from past experience with this breed of swine.

“We’ve had issues with wild boar in the past. It took a substantial amount from our enforcement and our ag. department to actually be able to eradicate them.”

In Alberta, wild boar is considered livestock when properly contained and penned. However, when the animals escape and roam at large, they have been deemed a pest under the Agriculture Pest Act in Alberta.

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That is the issue Beaupre and Council see if they were to allow such an operation. Despite the applicant assuring Council that the proper containment measures would be put in place, Beaupre says the benefits of running such an operation do not outweigh the potential damage that could be done to other agricultural operations in the area if even one of the wild animals was to escape.

“They dig underneath fences. They root and tear,” said Beaupre. “They can uproot crops. They can uproot trees. You get them into a woodlot situation, and they can do a lot of damage.”

Further to that, wild boar sows can also give birth to about 13 piglets per year. This means they can multiply quickly and become difficult to contain once they get out.

Though there are no wild boar operations in the County now, the spread of wild boars in other nearby municipalities has become so vast that they have called on the public to help cull the animals by placing a bounty on wild boar.

Despite the province putting an end to the province-wide bounty program in 2017, some municipalities in Alberta continue to offer such an incentive to get rid of the animals.

“If they (the citizen) can produce their ears and show the municipality that they’ve eradicated that animal from that County, they’ll actually pay them to do so.”

“They’re just not a well-received species in an agricultural setting.”

County administration will bring amendments to the Animal Control Bylaw, under the Land Use Bylaw, to a future Council meeting to be voted on.