By Liam Verster

Boars not considered livestock

County officially prohibits raising, owning wild boars

Jul 16, 2020 | 8:14 AM

The County of Grande Prairie has amended Land Use Bylaw 2680-20-008, to officially prohibit the wild boar operations within the County, including the raising or keeping of the animals.

County Council gave the third reading to the bylaw amendment at Monday’s Council meeting.

Reeve Leanne Beaupre says the decision to amend the bylaw and prohibit wild boar operations came after a request was put forth to Council several weeks ago, asking to raise the animals on agricultural land.

“The application was turned down, and Council directed Administration to come back with a bylaw that really states they are prohibited in the County of Grande Prairie, and it’s right in our land use bylaw. So, anybody looking in the future will find that they are not an accepted agricultural livestock, or an agricultural pursuit in the County of Grande Prairie.”

She says wild boars have been identified as problematic in Alberta, and, if they’re not properly penned in and manage to escape, they can cause lots of damage.

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“They get into a crop looking for roots and precious shoots, things like that. And they’ll get in and turn over trees and wreck the root systems on trees and things in shelterbelts as well.”

Boars are nocturnal, making them hard to capture and eradicate, and they also reproduce quickly, with females giving birth to litters of six piglets, twice a year.

Beaupre says passing this bylaw will allow the County to get ahead of the possibility of boars becoming a pest.

“We’ve learned from our [neighbouring municipalities] who are having a series of different problems trying to capture them and eradicate them, and this is just our attempt to make sure that we don’t have the same problem.”

The amendment was passed unanimously.

Currently, there are no known boar operations within the County of Grande Prairie.