"There are way more than 30 to 50 feral hogs around—and new research shows that they're taking a serious toll on our planet."
"Nearly two years ago, we all had a hearty laugh about 30 to 50 feral hogs. Turns out that all those pigs aren’t just a horribly invasive species, but they could be wreaking real havoc when it comes to climate change. According to a new study published Monday in Global Change Biology, wild pigs around the world are releasing the equivalent of 1.1 million cars’ worth of carbon dioxide each year—just from digging around in the dirt.
“Given that wild pigs are known to damage soil, we realized that no other study had looked at the total area at risk at a global scale,” Christopher O’Bryan, the study’s lead author and a research fellow at the University of Queensland, said over email. “Knowing how important soil is at storing carbon, we wanted to assess the risk of wild pig soil damage on carbon emissions.”
Piggies can be really cute, sure, but they’re pretty bad news. Feral hogs put endangered native species at risk of extinction. They also tear up crops, causing between $1.5 and $2.5 billion worth of damage in the U.S. (A group of feral hogs even killed a woman in Texas in 2019.)
“Wild pigs are essentially farm animals gone rogue,” O’Bryan said."
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