Canadian "Super Pigs" Pose Environmental Threat as They Cross Border into the States

The super pigs are coming and it's as scary as it sounds. Wildlife experts say a large cross-bred pig from Canada has likely already crossed the border into the US and will no doubt wreak havoc on the environment as it moves further south.

"These pigs are easily the worst invasive large mammal on the planet," Dr. Ryan Brook, an assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told Fox News Digital.

Brook said these "super pigs" are actually a cross between a European wild boar and a domestic pig, and because they live up north in colder weather, they are larger than the wild pigs we currently have in the states.

He said just like America's wild pigs, they cause crop damage, destroy natural environments, invade cities an neighborhoods, destroy water quality, and spread disease to livestock, humans, pets, and native wildlife.

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As the Canadian population of wild pigs swell, they're migrating south.

"The only people who should be worried about this is anyone that lives in North America and eats meat, or eats vegetables, or eats any foods based on grain crops, or spends time outside for any reason," he said.

According to Brook, the first European wild boars were imported to Canada in the 1980s to diversify that country's agriculture. Some boars managed to escape their fences and others were released by farmers after the wild boar market peaked in 2001.

Many believed that these boars would never survive the harsh Canadian winter, especially in the country's Prairie Provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta, but they were proven wrong, thanks to the large size of the pigs.

"Wild boar farmers were told to cross the wild boar with domestic pigs to make a bigger and longer animal," Brook said.

He explained that a domestic pig has an extra set of ribs and larger, more frequent litters.

"This was great for wild boar farmers, but [it] was a huge problem when [these animals] got into the wild," he said.

And, species will tend to be larger the farther north you go in their range, because being big is really important to survival in the cold," Brook said.

So far, the largest of Canada's super pigs discovered weighed well over 600 pounds.

The pig's mass, along with its intelligence, has made it capable of surviving harsh conditions and hard to eradicate. Brook said they've even learned how to tunnel into snow caves to keep themselves warm.

There must be "a rapid and highly aggressive response, just like dealing with cancer or forest fires — that is really the only option," Brook said.

Failure to quickly eliminate the pigs will result in environmental devastation.

"I was warned by someone in Texas, 'Stop whatever you are doing, start removing pigs, and don't stop until every single one is gone,'" Brook said.

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