Creature Highlight: Wild Boar (Sus Scrofa)

The Wild Boar is becoming a major concern throughout Saskatchewan due to the lack of predators keeping these escape artists in check. These mammals are incredibly smart, and demolish everything in their paths. Not to mention they do not like being alone and come together to multiply the demolition wreckage and intermingle in fast-growing social groups. Due to the nature of the population explosion, the boar will become a prime target for research in Saskatchewan and I believe this threat will test the resiliency of declining wetlands even more. Things aren’t all bad though and any researcher interested in rapid morphological changes should step up to the plate. Although I haven’t seen images of the difference/process myself, the word around the small province of Saskatchewan is that these boars have rapidly changed their morphology after escaping from the farms they once called home. Three months after a boar has escaped captivity the individual’s morphology is supposedly completely unrecognizable. If true, then this is a great example of phenotypic plasticity which is when an individual organism changes morphological expression over time to adapt to its environment without the need to adapt through reproduction. Looks like it’s time to do some camera trapping and trajectory analysis to get to the bottom of this mystery. The ecolion is on the case and as I begin to dive in only time and data will reveal the truth behind the winter of the boars.

Thanks for joining me in my corner of the jungle, Stay Hungry!