6 ms·

Ah here is the issue, feral pig meat isn’t really pork the way most people know it. It’s gamey and often parasite ridden.

motohagiography 4y ago
Maybe the solution is to kill the parasites, through detection and processing technology, and spraying habitats. If we really can't eat them, the other solution is to use chemistry to make something that feral pigs get addicted to and that they will give up food, sex, and nursing their young in pursuit of, and which is a human controlled substance we can manage. Drop enough of it in their habitats that they can always become dependent. If you just try to poison them, you kill off their own competition for food and just create more resilliant ones, but creating a chemical dependency where they will seek out sources that humans control would provide the lever to manage the population. This solution is related to one I commented on about the rat population in new york city. Just make something they want. I should do a startup, we could call it Pied Piper.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  It’s very difficult to kill the parasites of precisely one species with broad applicability. Also, your goals and the goals of environmentalists seems to be quite different here. You’re suggesting farming them, but environmentalists don’t actually want them there at all.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Animals in non-contrived normal environments don't actually do that. Furthermore poison of any variety is unlikely to be sufficiently targeted to just kill pigs and most isn't very humane.
clbrmbr 4y ago
Gamey me I can handle. But parasites? Count me out.
- tra3 4y ago
  “Regular” pork has parasites too, that’s why you wanna cook it to the “safe” temperature.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    The USDA inspects for parasites and rejects any animals that have signs of them. Very little US farmed pork has parasites.
    - taeric 4y ago
      I think this is also the case for salmon? First time I had wild salmon at home, I was... rather surprised by the number of parasites on it. It really is impressive how well farmed meat does at keeping that out. I don't think many of us have any sort of intuition for just how parasite ridden food was even a half century ago.
      - clbrmbr 4y ago
        I’ll think twice before my next sashimi!
      - Tagbert 4y ago
        That is why all commercial sales of wild salmon are frozen to kill the parasites. If you catch it yourself you need to either freeze it thoroughly or be very careful.
  - MichaelRo 4y ago
    Not really. Compared to the number of domestic pigs, parasite infections (like the deadly for humans Trichinellosis) are almost inexistent. And domestic pig meat is tested for parasites nevertheless. With all that I feel uneasy eating raw meat, although salami and prosciutto are very tasty and sometimes I submit to temptation. Feel like running the Russian roulette everytime although the probability of an actual parasite infestation is extremely low. Wild pigs would probably be okay if processed into I dunno, pasteurized canned meat. If that's guaranteed to kill parasites it should be okay for human consumption provided the meat is tested before nevertheless. One thing I'm thinking of is this problem: as far as I know testing the meat is a slow, manual process, where a human is required to take slices of the meat and check them under a microscope. Therefore it's only done on a statistical basis. That's enough for farm pigs, if a pig from a larger culture is parasite free, chances are very high that all are parasite free. But this is not possible for wild boars. Every pig they shot needs to be tested coze you never know otherwise. This is again feasible for the occasional hunt (here at least). Hunters will send a probe to the lab before consuming the pig and that's doable because it's like ... one or a few pigs. Not really possible if you massacre 1000 of them. So unless some technology is developed for automating this testing procedure, you can't safely eat the meat of a wild boar mass slaughter.
dgb23 4y ago
I'm pretty sure I've eaten feral pigs before. I remember it as being good quality. It's common to eat game in autumn where I live. Especially in rural areas. I think this might be one of these cases where meat consumption might be ethically sound and good for the environment. Feral pigs are hard to contain. They are smart, greedy, dangerous. They seem to be very similar to us humans in many regards, just less dominant overall, but the pigs we are talking about here also multiply very fast. There are very few animals who can fight large feral pigs, and even fewer who have good chances of not getting severely injured. Pigs come in packs and they can assess situations much better than typical prey. They can fight off wolves or scare them away, especially when they have a numbers advantage. So the typical wolf strategy often doesn't work. Wolves might have the stamina and composure, but the risk/reward isn't there. I don't think the article mentions it, but pigs track the schedule of human hunters. They know roughly at which times they will show up, so they carefully try to pick up the hunter's sent and track where they go in order to plan safer paths through the wild. So even if you hunt them actively, it's not an easy task at all.
is_true 4y ago
I've eaten wild board and it's gamey but tasty, a relative often does salami from a mix of wild board and axis deer. But I understand that feral and wild boards are different.
- samstave 4y ago
  I've had Wild Boar in Borneo with the tribe that was many years ago the "head hunter" and "poison blow dart" tribes we know of from yore... Super fatty, greasy and gamey. Washed down with the alcohol they drink in thee Borneo Jungles, which is a certain leaf fermented in human spit. An experience, yes. Not one I'd seek out again, but a great memory.
  - is_true 4y ago
    That sounds awesome. Wild boars here don't have almost any fat, neither does deer.
    - samstave 4y ago
      I think "greasy" is a better word for it..
karaterobot 4y ago
This is true. You don't kill feral pigs for meat, you kill them for the same reason you kill rats. It's not the kind of meat you'd eat if you had any other choice.
- cityofdelusion 4y ago
  Wild pig meat tastes fine if the animal is young, fit, and healthy. It is very lean and tough, I did an 18 hour slow cook and it as pretty good.
collegeburner 4y ago
well some stuff might but that's why you cook pork more than beef. it's not that gamey (depends on what it eats) but if you don't care for it, makes a good sausage with rabbit or squirrel.

motohagiography 4y ago

Maybe the solution is to kill the parasites, through detection and processing technology, and spraying habitats. If we really can't eat them, the other solution is to use chemistry to make something that feral pigs get addicted to and that they will give up food, sex, and nursing their young in pursuit of, and which is a human controlled substance we can manage. Drop enough of it in their habitats that they can always become dependent. If you just try to poison them, you kill off their own competition for food and just create more resilliant ones, but creating a chemical dependency where they will seek out sources that humans control would provide the lever to manage the population. This solution is related to one I commented on about the rat population in new york city. Just make something they want. I should do a startup, we could call it Pied Piper.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
It’s very difficult to kill the parasites of precisely one species with broad applicability. Also, your goals and the goals of environmentalists seems to be quite different here. You’re suggesting farming them, but environmentalists don’t actually want them there at all.
michaelmrose 4y ago
Animals in non-contrived normal environments don't actually do that. Furthermore poison of any variety is unlikely to be sufficiently targeted to just kill pigs and most isn't very humane.

clbrmbr 4y ago

Gamey me I can handle. But parasites? Count me out.

tra3 4y ago
“Regular” pork has parasites too, that’s why you wanna cook it to the “safe” temperature.
- linuxftw 4y ago
  The USDA inspects for parasites and rejects any animals that have signs of them. Very little US farmed pork has parasites.
  - taeric 4y ago
    I think this is also the case for salmon? First time I had wild salmon at home, I was... rather surprised by the number of parasites on it. It really is impressive how well farmed meat does at keeping that out. I don't think many of us have any sort of intuition for just how parasite ridden food was even a half century ago.
    - clbrmbr 4y ago
      I’ll think twice before my next sashimi!
    - Tagbert 4y ago
      That is why all commercial sales of wild salmon are frozen to kill the parasites. If you catch it yourself you need to either freeze it thoroughly or be very careful.
- MichaelRo 4y ago
  Not really. Compared to the number of domestic pigs, parasite infections (like the deadly for humans Trichinellosis) are almost inexistent. And domestic pig meat is tested for parasites nevertheless. With all that I feel uneasy eating raw meat, although salami and prosciutto are very tasty and sometimes I submit to temptation. Feel like running the Russian roulette everytime although the probability of an actual parasite infestation is extremely low. Wild pigs would probably be okay if processed into I dunno, pasteurized canned meat. If that's guaranteed to kill parasites it should be okay for human consumption provided the meat is tested before nevertheless. One thing I'm thinking of is this problem: as far as I know testing the meat is a slow, manual process, where a human is required to take slices of the meat and check them under a microscope. Therefore it's only done on a statistical basis. That's enough for farm pigs, if a pig from a larger culture is parasite free, chances are very high that all are parasite free. But this is not possible for wild boars. Every pig they shot needs to be tested coze you never know otherwise. This is again feasible for the occasional hunt (here at least). Hunters will send a probe to the lab before consuming the pig and that's doable because it's like ... one or a few pigs. Not really possible if you massacre 1000 of them. So unless some technology is developed for automating this testing procedure, you can't safely eat the meat of a wild boar mass slaughter.

dgb23 4y ago

I'm pretty sure I've eaten feral pigs before. I remember it as being good quality. It's common to eat game in autumn where I live. Especially in rural areas. I think this might be one of these cases where meat consumption might be ethically sound and good for the environment. Feral pigs are hard to contain. They are smart, greedy, dangerous. They seem to be very similar to us humans in many regards, just less dominant overall, but the pigs we are talking about here also multiply very fast. There are very few animals who can fight large feral pigs, and even fewer who have good chances of not getting severely injured. Pigs come in packs and they can assess situations much better than typical prey. They can fight off wolves or scare them away, especially when they have a numbers advantage. So the typical wolf strategy often doesn't work. Wolves might have the stamina and composure, but the risk/reward isn't there. I don't think the article mentions it, but pigs track the schedule of human hunters. They know roughly at which times they will show up, so they carefully try to pick up the hunter's sent and track where they go in order to plan safer paths through the wild. So even if you hunt them actively, it's not an easy task at all.

is_true 4y ago

I've eaten wild board and it's gamey but tasty, a relative often does salami from a mix of wild board and axis deer. But I understand that feral and wild boards are different.

samstave 4y ago
I've had Wild Boar in Borneo with the tribe that was many years ago the "head hunter" and "poison blow dart" tribes we know of from yore... Super fatty, greasy and gamey. Washed down with the alcohol they drink in thee Borneo Jungles, which is a certain leaf fermented in human spit. An experience, yes. Not one I'd seek out again, but a great memory.
- is_true 4y ago
  That sounds awesome. Wild boars here don't have almost any fat, neither does deer.
  - samstave 4y ago
    I think "greasy" is a better word for it..

karaterobot 4y ago

This is true. You don't kill feral pigs for meat, you kill them for the same reason you kill rats. It's not the kind of meat you'd eat if you had any other choice.

cityofdelusion 4y ago
Wild pig meat tastes fine if the animal is young, fit, and healthy. It is very lean and tough, I did an 18 hour slow cook and it as pretty good.

collegeburner 4y ago

well some stuff might but that's why you cook pork more than beef. it's not that gamey (depends on what it eats) but if you don't care for it, makes a good sausage with rabbit or squirrel.