What was the justification for exterminating a family of wild boar that was discovered in county Kerry? Well, the answer, as usual, is based on agriculture: The notion that if this “invasive species” was allowed to take hold in Ireland, it might pass diseases on to our poor domestic pigs, and, in the final analysis, cost Irish pig farmers money. The only problem, of course, is that one of the poor blighters has escaped, and – at the time of writing, at least – is on the loose, with the proverbial price on his head:
In recent days the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) had been in the Mount Eagle, Cordal area of Castleisland hunting the illegal herd.
As boars are an invasive species in Ireland wildlife experts were notified by a local farmer when he spotted them on his land. The herd was cornered in a field and then euthanised.
One of the feral pigs bolted from his impending demise and is now on the loose in the countryside.
A spokesperson for the NPWS said that people should report any sightings and not to approach the dangerous animal.
“It is currently an offence under both, to introduce without a current licence certain species into the wild which may have serious implications for our native flora and fauna. Such releases are not only illegal, but they also pose a very serious threat to the disease free status of the national herd.”
Advocating against the execution of these pigs, is, of course, the preserve of pinko left wingers like Saoirse McHugh, and, well, me.
Wild pigs, of course, do not just appear out of nowhere. These animals, it is fair to assume, did not swim across the sea and arrive on a Kerry beach. Somebody, somewhere, in what was presumably a well-meaning act of ecological vigilantism, released them into the wild. And in so doing, he or she cost the poor pigs their lives. The one who survived, if animals are capable of registering such things (and evidence suggests they are) had to watch his little family executed in front of him. The person who released them, to be clear, did not do them a favour.
But why did they have to die? What was gained from that? Are we really so callous a society that we could not transport the boar to somewhere more suitable for them, even if it was an enclosed space? Could the pigs not have been transported to the UK, where wild pigs still live (and, incidentally, don’t seem to harm the UK’s thriving pork industry)? And while we are on the subject: Though the act of releasing them was harmful and illegal, and should not have been done unilaterally, is there really no space in Ireland for wild pigs, which lived here for centuries before people drove them to extinction?
Pigs are not even close to being the most dangerous invasive species in Kerry, in any case. For years, the Healy Raes, and others, have pointed out the massive infestation of Rhododendron in the county. Killarney, in particular, is so covered by it that Ireland’s last great Oak forest is now a dead forest, because oak saplings simply cannot compete with the invasive Rhododendron. Rhododendron, though, does not threaten agriculture, so calls to remove it have been, largely, laughed off. Presenting the extermination of this family of pigs as part of some great strategy to preserve the balance of Irish ecology is, in that context, absolutely laughable.
Eamon Ryan, in recent years, has come under very justified fire for calling for the reintroduction of wolves. That is understandable: Wolves are a carnivorous species, after all. Wild pigs, on the other hand, lived here for centuries, and were an important part of the country’s ecological balance. There is, and should be, room for a debate about whether we could bring them back. Certainly, they deserve better than summary execution. If the lone survivor from this family is found, mercy should be shown, and he should be allowed to live. Call me a softy if you want, but exterminating creatures who are just trying to live their lives as nature intended is not the mark of a decent society.