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Alberta Wild-Pig Reports Clustered Near Livestock Farms, but Direct Contact Was Rare

Juvenile wild boar standing in grass
Research · Ecology

Reports of invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa) in Alberta, Canada were closer to livestock farms than expected from random locations, but direct contact with livestock was rarely reported. The strongest spatial associations were with wild-boar farms, smallholder pig farms and cow–calf operations.

The study combined 218 certain or probable wild-pig reports from Alberta’s Wild Boar Control Program, collected between 2015 and January 2025, with the locations of livestock farms. The main proximity analysis used 202 reports from the central occurrence cluster. Forty-four of them — 22% — were within 500 metres of a livestock operation.

The researchers also modelled where wild pigs could occur if they occupied all suitable habitat. Under that scenario, broad overlap with livestock operations increased most for smallholder pig and dairy farms. However, an overlap measure that also accounts for how intensively the same places are used remained extremely low. The maps therefore indicate where opportunities for interaction may be higher; they do not document direct contact or disease transmission.

A survey of 231 livestock producers showed how different the picture looked at farm level. Nine respondents, or 4%, reported confirmed wild-pig presence and another 14 were uncertain. Only one producer reported direct interaction between wild pigs and livestock. At the same time, 45 producers said their carcass-disposal practices could potentially allow wild pigs access to livestock carcasses, and seven reported possible access to livestock feed.

The authors caution that the two data sources measure different things. Wild-pig reports were opportunistic and influenced by where people were active and encouraged to report animals, while the producer survey produced few confirmed detections and did not cover Alberta evenly. Taken together, the data identify places where the wildlife–livestock interface may deserve closer surveillance as wild pigs continue to expand, without showing how often actual contact or pathogen transmission occurs.

Sources and image credit

  1. Salazar, L. G., McKenzie, H., Deardon, R., Pepin, K. M., Brook, R., Bahamon, J., Neva, C., & Pruvot, M. (2026). Interaction risk between invasive wild pigs and livestock: Implications for potential infectious disease transmission in Alberta, Canada. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 255, 106968. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2026.106968Primary open-access research article available online 28 July 2026 under CC BY 4.0. The study combined 218 certain or probable wild-pig reports with livestock-farm locations; 202 reports in the main occurrence cluster were used for proximity analysis, of which 44 (22%) were within 500 m of a livestock operation. Reports were significantly closer than random points to wild-boar farms, smallholder pig farms and cow-calf operations. A survey of 231 producers found confirmed wild-pig presence at 9 farms (4%) and one reported direct wild pig–livestock interaction. The authors emphasize that opportunistic reporting and limited survey detections constrain inference about actual contact or disease transmission.

Image: Juvenile wild boar (Sus scrofa) standing in grass, photographed in July 1974. Photo: Warren Garst / Colorado State University Libraries / Digital Public Library of America / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0. Representative species image; not an animal from the Alberta study. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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