Essay On Wild Boars

boar Wild boars are now widespread throughout the world and negatively affect many ecosystem components especially plants and animal species. The wild boar belongs to the phylum Chordata since it has a structure called a notochord, class Mammalia because the female boar has mammary glands, order Artiodactyla since it is an even-toed ungulate and family Suidae since it is a type of pig. Wild boars are native to western Europe and northern Africa and were introduced to the United States by early explorers in 1912 (Dobson 1998). Wild boars quickly adapted to the new environment and began spreading throughout the country. The biology of the wild boar is related to the success of the wild boar invasions. The wild boar can eat wide range of food. The wild boar spends a lot of time rooting for bulbs and invertebrates and they also

Because the diet of the wild boar is non-specific, it could spread into different vegetation areas. Also, the wild boar has an efficient digestive system and its immense size allows the boar to consume large amounts of food (Elston and Hewitt). This makes the native species that have to compete with wild boars harder to survive. The wild boar is an enormous threat to plant species. When energy-rich food is scarce, the wild boar has a substantial effect on agricultural crops (Massie and Genov 2004). This states that when the habitat of the wild boar lacks high-energy food, the boar can substitute cultivated crops in order to get the energy that it needs. Since the wild boar can consume almost all kinds of cultivated plants such as cereal, sorghum, maize and oats, in United States alone, wild boar crop damage cost is estimated to be $800 million/year (Pitmentel et al. 2005). The wild boar also has detrimental effects on native plant species. Researchers from Rice University and Texas A&M conducted a study in Big Ticket National Preserve