Chapter 26: Conservation of wild pigs and peccaries287
indicate how consequences of peccary defaunation have a tre-
mendous impact on the ecosystem. It affects plant diversity and
forest structure and function, and has cascading effects on other
animals. Peccaries make up most of the mammalian biomass
(Peres 1996) in the Neotropics, and its absence has a significant
top-down cascading effect.
Conserving peccaries and wild pigs for the livelihood of
local and native people and for maintaining forest biodiversity is
an ambitious but urgent initiative that needs to be carried out by
several actors of society. Government entities, NGOs, local com-
munities, and conservation and academic institutions need to
work together to properly protect and manage critically endan-
gered species and those that are showing a dramatic population
decline in recent years. Because of hunting pressure, extensive
deforestation and habitat fragmentation, their range is increas-
ingly more reduced; isolated populations impact demographic
and genetic variables that lead to even smaller and more isolated
populations, ultimately creating the conditions for local extinc-
tions of plant and animal populations that rely on peccaries and
pigs for seed distribution or sustenance. Natural levels of gene
flow are becoming more restricted for peccaries and wild pigs,
potentially provoking genetic alterations and local extinctions
of isolated populations. Protecting sufficient natural habitat and
maintaining landscape-level connectivity will be key to the sur-
vival of these species in both fragmented and intact regions.
Conservation efforts targeting peccaries and pigs will ben-
efit regional biodiversity through the maintenance of their
ecological roles as fruit dispersers and predators, ecosystem
engineers, and prey for large carnivores. Furthermore, as men-
tioned earlier, protecting pigs and peccaries would prevent dis-
astrous cascading ecological events triggered by the absence
or local extinction of these species from a region. Finally, their
conservation will guarantee that amazing ecological phenom-
ena such as large movements and animal aggregations, unique
ecological adaptations to find resources, and a cultural relation-
ship between indigenous/local communities (Figure 26.7) and
wild pigs/peccaries that have been cultivated for centuries will
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