ConservationBytes.com

The Black Summer bushfires of 2019–2020 that razed more than half of the landscape on Kangaroo Island in South Australia left an indelible mark on the island’s unique native biodiversity, which is still struggling to recover. 

However, one big bonus for the environment’s recovery is the likely eradication of feral pigs (Sus scrofa). Invasive feral pigs cause a wide range of environmental, economic and social damages. In Australia, feral pigs occupy about 40% of the mainland and offshore islands, with a total, yet highly uncertain, population size estimated in the millions. 

Feral pigs are recognised as a key threatening process under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, with impacts on at least 148 nationally threatened species and eight threatened ecological communities. They are a declared invasive species and the subject to control programs in all Australian jurisdictions.

In a new article published in Ecosphere, a collaboration between PIRSA Biosecurity and the Global Ecology Laboratory at Flinders University analysed optimal strategies for culling feral pigs.