When you think of great survivors in the animal kingdom, your mind might not immediately go to the humble pig, but maybe it should. In the wild, pigs are extremely durable — they can thrive in almost any environment — and they’re well-known for being able and willing to eat just about anything.
These two traits alone should earn them some respect as highly adaptable creatures. The problem is, those same characteristics make them a nuisance, certainly in the U.S., where feral hogs are now considered a highly destructive invasive species.
In Europe, though, especially in Bavaria, Germany, the meat of the hairy, tusked wild boar (Sus scrofa) is more than a delicacy; it is one of the most popular forms of game meat. This makes feral pigs a favorite quarry among hunters in that part of the world.
Unfortunately, over the last several years, the inherent hardiness of those hogs has made them especially resistant to one of the most destructive forces in the world — and brought to light a problem that is both a mystery and something of a menace. In short, a significant portion of the German wild boar population — more than one in three, according to research going back nearly a decade — is radioactive.
German hunters who kill a wild boar are supposed to submit it to authorities for testing. Often, the meat of the pig is deemed too radioactive for human consumption and must be destroyed. The situation has led many hunters to stop harvesting wild boars altogether, giving rise to a new problem: the proliferation of these feral pigs. Over the past several years, that pig population has increasingly pushed wild boars out of the realm of wild-game delicacy and into the same arena of invasive species that the U.S. is currently dealing with.
