The Selfishness Behind Australia's Feral Pig Problem
The anger in that Reddit post hit me right in the gut. Here’s someone trying to do the right thing - restoring native bushland for wildlife - only to watch it get torn apart night after night by feral pigs. What makes it worse is knowing that some of these destructive animals are out there because people deliberately released them so they’d have “something to hunt.”
The photo they shared of their chewed-up land tells the whole story. Hundreds of square metres of ground torn up, native grasses dying, topsoil washing away with the next rain. It’s heartbreaking to see decades of potential recovery work undone in a single night by animals that shouldn’t even be here.
What really gets under my skin is the historical pattern of this selfishness. Reading through the comments, people were listing off all the other disasters: rabbits and foxes released for hunting, sparrows brought over by acclimatisation societies trying to make Australia more “English,” carp dumped in our waterways because that’s what some people wanted to catch. There’s this quote someone shared about acclimatisation societies: “there was never a body of men so foolishly, so vigorously, and so disastrously wrong.” Bloody hell, if that doesn’t sum it up perfectly.
The scale of damage from these introductions is staggering. We’ve got over a million feral camels roaming the outback, 200 million rabbits competing with native wildlife, and now these pigs systematically destroying restoration efforts. Each introduction compounds the problem - rabbits feed foxes and feral cats, making them worse pests while displacing native animals.
I spent some time last year volunteering with a local Landcare group in the Dandenong Ranges, and the stories are all the same. Dedicated people spending their weekends planting native seedlings, building fences, removing weeds, only to find their work destroyed by introduced species. The frustration is real, and it’s justified.
The conversation around pest control was particularly interesting. While there’s debate about the effectiveness of shooting versus trapping in forested areas, what struck me was how many people were willing to help. Professional shooters offering their services, recreational hunters looking for properties to assist with pest control, suggestions for drone surveillance and night vision equipment. It shows there are people who understand the problem and want to be part of the solution.
But here’s what really needs to change: we need to stop thinking about this as just an environmental issue and start treating it as what it is - a consequence of individual selfishness that has collective costs. Every person who releases animals into the wild for their own entertainment is stealing from future generations. They’re taking away the chance for our kids to see thriving native ecosystems, clean waterways, and the incredible biodiversity that makes Australia unique.
The person fighting those pigs on their bush block is doing important work. They’re spending their own time and money trying to repair damage caused by other people’s poor choices. They shouldn’t have to, but they are, and that deserves respect and support.
Maybe it’s time we started holding people more accountable for these introductions. Maybe we need stronger penalties, better education, and a cultural shift that makes releasing non-native species as socially unacceptable as dumping rubbish in national parks. Because that’s essentially what it is - environmental vandalism with consequences that last for generations.
To anyone out there considering releasing animals for hunting or any other reason: think about that photo of torn-up bushland. Think about the person who has to spend their weekends repairing damage they didn’t cause. Think about the native animals losing their habitat. Then don’t do it. Please.