That’ll Do Pig
An invasive species aids Brazil's native wildlife
Mention “bushmeat hunting” or “invasive species” to a typical conservation biologist, and you’re likely to hear groans. Both threaten ecosystems around the world. In Brazil’s massive Pantanal wetland, however, the two problems are adding up to a conservation solution, researchers report in the journal Oryx. It’s an unexpected story involving war, pigs and a collection of skulls.
The Pantanal, one of the world’s largest freshwater wetlands, stretches from western Brazil into parts of Bolivia and Paraguay. It is famous for its wildlife – and cattle ranches: some 95% of the Pantanal is privately owned. In the past, hunting and poaching posed serious threats to local wildlife. Today, however, bushmeat hunting – a major problem in many other tropical areas – is not seen as a major problem.
To understand why, researchers from Brazil and the United Kingdom surveyed and interviewed nearly 100 hunters living on 71 Panatal ranches between 2002 and 2005. The hunters were asked to describe their hunting practices, and fill out forms that identified their prey. The researchers also collected more than 250 skulls of some commonly-hunted animals, including two species of peccary and one kind of feral pig (Sus scrofa). The pigs probably escaped into the wetland some 150 years ago, during the Paraguay War that lasted from 1865 to 1870, “when ranches in the Pantanal were devastated and abandoned,” the researchers report.
Taken together, the skulls and the surveys “showed that feral pigs are the main hunting target” in the Pantanal, they write. And that’s a good thing: “One of the reasons hunting is not a conservation issue in the Pantanal is that local people prefer to hunt the feral pig… rather than native wildlife.” The invasive porkers “are effectively acting as a replacement species… (and) provide a constant, culturally acceptable, readily available and free source of meat and oil to remote ranches.”
The pigs, however, also cause some environmental damage by rooting up plants, and so it is not entirely clear “if the buffer from hunting that feral pigs provide to native wildlife outweigh this species’ potential negative ecological impacts.” For moment, however, it appears that the “introduction of an invasive species and bushmeat hunting, two major threats to biodiversity, are aiding wildlife conservation.” – David Malakoff | February 7, 2011
Source: Jean Desbiez, A., Keuroghlian, A., Piovezan, U., & Bodmer, R. (2011). Invasive species and bushmeat hunting contributing to wildlife conservation: the case of feral pigs in a Neotropical wetland. Oryx, 45 (01), 78-83 DOI: 10.1017/S0030605310001304
Image © Karel Broz
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I have spent the last 7 years traveling to the Pantanal of Brazil and can atterst to the supreme succulent nature of the feral pig. MMMM good!
So, do we keep any lesson from this in order to alleviate illegal hunting in Central Africa? Alien pigs are good for local hogs?
Perhaps there is a lesson here. Local people rarely get what they need except, in certain instances by accident as the above situation implies. Take for example the case of subsistence fishermen in the region of Kiunga Marine Reserve in Kenya where they need only support to continue fishing and supplement their income to support conservation measures. Instead they are about to be dredged under by the construction of a second national port – good for the national interest, bad for their own. If local people were originally given a voice in planning and management of their own natural resources, many mistakes might have been avoided long ago. Instead, we continue the divestment of people from local resources. And tell them its in their own interest. As such we can only hope for more accidental successes – few and far between.
Local people often need to wait for such accidental ‘gifts’ having been divested from power over their own resources. Such is the case in Africa over and over again. Even in internationally protected zones which posit as their objectives the integration of local people in planning and management. In Kiunga Marine Reserve in Kenya, local people who need only support to continue traditional artisinal fishing and means to supplement their income in order to support conservation measures are about to be dredged under as the nation plans to situate a second national port – right next to a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Such national interests are expected to trickle down to the thousands about to be stripped of their lands and livelihoods. Perhaps they can hope for a serendipitous silver lining – a feral pig – but they are few and far between. Local people continue to be divested from all power over their land and resources. We have really learned nothing yet.
that’s really cool