Pill could put stop to rampaging pigs in outback

In Issue 8 of Savanna Links we profiled the enormous problems feral pigs posed to the northern savannas-as well as areas such as the north's tropical rainforests. But in a few years a novel solution may be at hand: controlling the animal through an anti-fertility vaccine.

At a recent workshop on feral pigs in Cairns, Dr Bob Seamark, director of Vertebrate Biocontrol CRC, revealed that such a vaccine could be spread through the feral population by a virus such as swinepox.

Dr Seamark painted a future scenario that would see the feral pig populations of the north substantially reduced, although not eliminated altogether. "It works by introducing a novel biocontrol agent into the pig population which would eventually make it infertile.

"Commercial piggeries would be protected by a vaccine against the anti-fertility agent." Dr Holland said the anti-fertility agent could be delivered by using baits, or through using a naturally occurring pig-specific disease agent such as swinepox as a 'taxi'.

"This would need a lot more investigation, especially as it is difficult to use bait in very isolated or inaccessible sites," he explained.

"Swinepox is normally transmitted by the pig louse, and could provide a very useful tool for spreading the anti-fertility agent amongst the feral pigs."

Dr Holland added that the agent would include a sequence to immunise wild pigs against livestock diseases such as foot and mouth disease and human diseases such as Japanese encephalitis.