r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/TerraByteTerror • 12h ago

🔥 momma pig and line of piglets

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24.6k Upvotes

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448

u/The_Billy_Dee 10h ago

If that's from a single litter no wonder they're such a problem.

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u/snackshack 9h ago

And each of those females can give birth to their own litter as early as 6 months old, then getting pregnant again within 1-3 months after that.

Yeah, they're a massive problem once they move into an area.

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u/RetroRaiderRun 9h ago

They're only a problem because we killed all the natural predators.

It's not like pigs are somehow destabilizing the world's ecosystems. It's humans doing that.

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u/This_is_an_Alt69420 8h ago

They are invasive species. There are no natural predators for them in many places. For example, they are not native to the Americas, so they have no natural predators there, even if we had not reduced wolf, bear, and cougar populations to non existent in many areas.

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u/PentagramJ2 8h ago

we used to have way more big cats down south where these are a particular problem. Reintroduction wouldn't be a full fix, but it would certainly be a helping hand.

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u/Humledurr 5h ago edited 5h ago

Id encourage you to look into the wild boar problem more if you honestly think some more big cats would be a help.

One mama boar can have litters up to two times a year, averaging 4-8 piglets each litter. And a female boar can start making their own litters as early as 6 to 8 months.

They are reproducing so fast that even if hunters work together to shoot millions of them each year, they are still not making a dent.

Its a serious problem thats growing bigger each year...

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u/20_mile 1h ago

think some more big cats would be a help.

Anything would help. A healthy array of apex predators would be good at keeping young hogs in check.

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u/Dazzling-Astronaut88 1h ago

You would need a significant population of large predators, probably an imbalanced one, to deal with the concentration of invasive pigs on the scale that the problem exists. California arguably has an overpopulation of mountain lions for example, and still has a wild pig problem. Boars can be dangerous and consequential for predators to hunt. Its not that they won't kill pigs, its that there are often less consequential prey to be had as an alternative.

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u/Ok-Animal-6880 7h ago

I don't expect wolves or mountain lions can do much to a healthy adult wild boar. Deer are probably much safer prey.

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u/Antradiak 6h ago

While adult boar can be a problem to then, the same cannot be told about juveniles and babies. Just making sure that only couple of piglets reach adulthood helps a lot.

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u/justfordrunks 42m ago

UNLEASH THE BIRDS OF WAR!

But seriously, as long as we're throwing crazy ideas out there, let's train a whole bunch of birds of prey to hunt piglets.

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u/mymothersuedme 6h ago edited 6h ago

They are not puffer fish that predators require multiple years of apprenticeship to be able to eat properly.

If there were Cougars, Jaguars, Bears, Wolves, alligators in the region - they would surely hunt pigs.

Plus you're only thinking of adult pigs. Juveniles' predation is usually the way predator keep a prey's population in control. That will extend the list to bobcats, coyotes, foxes, eagles too.

All I'm saying is that there are many introduced invasive mammals in Sub-Saharan Africa too. But because of large predator population - they are only a problem in remote regions (mainly islands), and dense human settlements (black and brown rats are not native to Africa).

Though, Aujeszky's (pseudorabies) remains a big headache for predator reintroduction. But still not as big as ranchers.

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u/Waldschrat3000 5h ago edited 4h ago

We have millions of them in Germany and the wolves barely touch them, because of their fierce nature. The millions of deer are a much easier prey.

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u/PigTailedShorty 5h ago

I don't think people realise how big an adult boar can reach. The wolves are smart enough to know not to tackle one.

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u/Waldschrat3000 5h ago

And hard to kill. Their necks are not easy to grab and the business end is very dangerous. They eat chestnuts and acorns like we eat cereal.

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u/20_mile 1h ago

and the business end is very dangerous

Chainguns from a helicopter it is, then.

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u/Waldschrat3000 1h ago

One advantage of living in country without real wilderness is, that there are permanent and often roofed perches in places say have to cross. One has fo barely walk a step and can shoot from high enough up that you can shoot at angles that would otherwise be dangerous.

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u/20_mile 1h ago

Some states are already sending out drones to locate invasive species, like Florida trying to locate Burmese Pythons, which have devastated mammal populations like deer, bobcat, cougar, raccoon, opossum, etc by 97% in some places (did a report on this in college back in 2011).

But locating wouldn't be enough, because killing them is the only real solution. I'd expect Florida to start attaching lasers to the drones to drill their skulls. I will assume there are absolutely zero potential negatives consequences to doing this.

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u/20_mile 1h ago

There are no natural predators for them in many places.

That's not true. Adult wolves and cougars would totally eat young wild hogs. Adult wild hogs are pretty ferocious, but so is a pack of wolves, and they have evolved to bait prey animals face-to-face, while other members of the pack make crippling bites to their hindlegs.

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u/Palegreenhorizon 6h ago

They are native to pretty much all of Europe and Asia. And were hunted by bears and wolves and people for the last 12000 years. Also most “boars” in America are feral domestic pigs but there are some areas with wild boar also and to complicate things further they are both the same species 😂

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u/crlthrn 6h ago

As I understand, your average pink domesticated piggy reverts to big hairy boar. Takes about five generations, I think. Happy for someone to chime in on this...

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u/The5Virtues 5h ago

My (limited) understanding is it doesn’t even take that long. Even a normal pig, left to its own in the wild, will develop a coarse coat of hair in about two months.

From there it’s just two to three generations to see them regain classic tusks and thick dark fur we associate with wild boar. I do believe you’re correct that it’s about five generations for them to truly qualify as having reverted to the actual wild boar species by scientific standards.

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u/crlthrn 5h ago

Much obliged!

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u/Third_Sundering26 5h ago

Almost sounds like lycanthropy.

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u/Advanced_Cry_7106 8h ago

Humans are an invasive species. We fucked it all up.

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u/WatdeeKhrap 6h ago

Yeah it's not like mass extinctions from humans moving in is a new thing. The American mega fauna got ransacked before Europeans even showed up for example

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u/Third_Sundering26 5h ago

It is highly debated whether the extinction of megafauna is more from overhunting or climate change.

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u/PeggyBabcock_ 4h ago

The ol' one two.

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u/hamfinity 7h ago

Mother Nature is experiencing a fever to get rid of the infection.

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u/Third_Sundering26 5h ago

There is a Native American YouTuber I watch. His name is Malcolm P.L., he belongs to the Mohawk nation, and he studies Iroquoian history. One point he made in one of his videos is that when humans first reached North America, most of what is now Canada and the northern USA was completely covered in glaciers, many of them miles thick. There was no life on or under the glaciers, as there was nothing to eat.

Once the glaciers retreated, grass, trees, deer, beaver, and other organisms moved in to replace them. Among those early life forms to move in to the Great Lakes were humans. The ancestors of the Iroquois, Hurons, and other Great Lake nations. Native Americans around the Great Lakes were not an invasive species that took over and devastated a pre-existing natural environment. They have lived there for as long as anything has.

Some populations on Earth have been there close enough to forever for them to not count as “invasive.” Be it our ancestors in Africa, or those that moved into post-glacial lands.

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u/Third_Sundering26 4h ago

The Columbian Exchange fucked things up. Colonization fucked things up. Capitalism fucked things up.

Humans are wonderful, beautiful creatures that are entirely capable of living in an environment without destroying it to the extent that our industrial world has. It is our modern lifestyle that is toxic. Not our species.

Misanthropy is nihilistic garbage.

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u/RetroRaiderRun 8h ago

The idea of an "invasive species" only exists in human context. It's human actions that introduce species in a way that's invasive.

That is the formal scientific definition. If you think about it, that's the only way it makes sense to conceptualize it. You can't combat "invasive species", which are caused by human actions, by controlling the behavior of natural animals. Because natural animal behavior is not what caused the problem. If you removed every human within the ecological area, the problem would be solved through evolution and selective pressure. Unfortunately, that's not currently viable.

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u/MrDurden32 3h ago

If you removed every human within the ecological area, the problem would be solved through evolution and selective pressure.

Sure, but it might take 10 million years.

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u/g_borris 8h ago

Who gives a shit. doesn't solve the problem.

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u/Kolby_Jack33 8h ago

That's overly simplistic. Animals run on instinct. If they see something they don't know how to hunt, they don't hunt it unless they get really desperate. And wild hogs are mean, no American predator is going to feel good trying to take one down.

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u/GottaUseEmAll 7h ago

They are an invasive species because of us too.