Ecology, Conservation and Management of Wild Pigs and Peccaries

Part III: Conservation and Management

314

Introduction

South America is facing a new wave of biological invasion of Sus

scrofa and the novelty is related to Eurasian wild boar pheno-

type instead of the most common invasive variety, the feral pig

(Jaksic 1998; Jaksic et al. 2002; Herrero & Luco 2003; GISP 2005;

Canevari & Vaccaro 2007; Deberdt & Scherer 2007; Ghione

et al. 2008; Novillo & Ojeda 2008; Pescador et al. 2009; MMA/

CONABIO 2009; Cuevas et al. 2010; García et al. 2011; Barrios-

Garcia & Ballari 2012; Sampaio & Schmidt 2013; Salvador &

Fernandez 2014; Pedrosa et al. 2015; Skewes & Jaksic 2015). The

current geographic distribution of wild boar is different from

that of feral pig and useful to identify the implications of this

invasion on political borders, ecosystems and protected areas

(Figure 29.1).

Sus scrofa in the wild performs many ecological interactions,

becoming a new threat for the South American biodiversity as a

potential predator, disease reservoir, and competitor (Coblentz

& Baber 1987; Sicuro & Oliveira 2002; Pérez Carusi et al. 2009;

Desbiez et al. 2012; Keuroghlian et al. 2012). The species is also

the reason for many economic and social conflicts with human

activities, such as livestock and crop attacks (Barrios-Garcia &

Ballari 2012).

Potential niche overlap is possible between Sus scrofa and the

native pig-like peccaries (Sicuro & Oliveira 2002). Considering

competition as one of the threats to biodiversity, the new mas-

sive invasion of S. scrofa makes the peccaries the species most

threatened by wild boars and feral pigs. If other species and

ecosystems coevolved with native pig-like varieties, they could

deal better with similar ecological interactions of alien pigs than

would do peccaries. For instance, we could assume the pecca-

ries as a reference to assess the relative environmental impact of

S. scrofa on the South American ecosystem. Moreover, this threat

should take place in most parts of the continent (Figure 29.2).

Peccaries can reach elevated biomasses in the Neotropical

realm and are engaged in such important ecological interactions

that they are often considered engineers or architects of ecosys-

tems (Taber et al. 2008; Keuroghlian & Eaton 2009; Altrichter et

al. 2012). They have great ability in dispersal and seed predation,

trampling seedlings, changing soil properties by rooting, con-

suming flowers, fungi and roots, and building microhabitats for

other species of vertebrates such as frogs and lizards (Kiltie 1981;

Silman et al. 2003; Beck 2006; Paine & Beck 2007; Keuroghlian

et al. 2008; Keuroghlian & Eaton 2009; Beck et al. 2010; Reider

et al. 2013). Peccaries are still among the main prey for the top

predators of the Neotropical terrestrial ecosystems (Emmons

1987; Oliveira 2002; Weckel et al. 2006a,b; Cavalcanti 2008;

Cavalcanti & Gese 2010). Like the alien pigs, the native ones

also come into socioeconomic conflict with human activities,

such as crop and livestock attacks and diseases (Kashivakura et

al. 2003; Jácomo 2004; Herrera et al. 2008; Brocardo & Delgado

2014). However, differently from the new wave of invasion

of wild boar, the peccaries have suffered a severe reduction in

their geographic distribution in South America, especially in

the south-western region, and require conservation strategies

Figure 29.1 Distribution of wild populations of Sus scrofa phenotypes, Eurasian wild boar (left) and feral pig (right) from 1500 to 2016 in South America. Modified

and updated from Salvador (2012).

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