By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) Director Rebecca Humphries has signed an order declaring feral swine and wild boar invasive species.

Humphries gave the order an effective date of July 8, 2011, to give the state legislature time to enact laws to regulate facilities that provide feral swine breeding and hunting. State officials believe these facilities are the main source of feral swine and wild boar in Michigan. Without legislation to regulate the facilities, it will become illegal to possess wild boar in Michigan.

“Feral swine pose a significant risk to Michigan’s wildlife, ecosystems and agricultural resources, and they are a serious disease threat to humans, wildlife and domesticated pigs,” Humphries said.

“I urge the legislature to address this issue in 2011. Michigan is in a unique position to address this threat to our natural and agricultural resources by having our legal options aligned, but regulation is greatly needed for us to be effective.”

Russ Mason, the DNRE’s wildlife division chief, said that state Rep. James Bolger (R-Marshall) in particular has taken an interest in developing legislation to regulate the sport swine industry rather than just having it go out of business.
“What I’d like to see is a fully funded regulatory program,” Mason said.
A swine work group formed earlier this year came up with written recommendations on how to regulate the industry and figures on how much it would cost.

“Except for the United Deer Farmers, the work group agreed that a fee structure should be developed to support the full regulatory costs associated with the shooting/breeding swine industry,” the report reads. “At present, and over the past decade, the captive cervid industry has paid only 7 percent of their regulatory cost.”

Taxpayers in Michigan have funded the rest of it. Mason said this underscores how programs like this tend not to be funded the way they should be. He stated there isn’t enough money in the general fund for another program.
The cost of regulating the sport swine industry could be upwards of $1 million a year, according to Sam Hines, executive vice president of the Michigan Pork Producers Assoc. (MPPA).

“Quite honestly, we don’t think it’s going to work,” he said of efforts to regulate the industry. “The state has no money for that kind of thing. Our preferred outcome would be to see the invasive species order go into effect.”

Hines said the sport swine people try to argue that their industry is economically productive; however, it pales in comparison to the pork industry, since 20,000-30,000 pigs leave Michigan every week to be finished outside the state because it has no slaughterhouse for pigs.

Therefore, it makes economic sense to finish the pigs close to a slaughterhouse, which is usually in Ohio or Indiana, Hines explained. He said the pork industry in Michigan is a $500 million-a-year industry. Farmers in Michigan raise two million hogs annually.

“We’ve got to shut the faucet off,” Hines said. “We’ve also got to try to eradicate those that are in the wild already.” He noted there are an estimated 3,000-7,000 feral swine in Michigan.

Mason said feral swine are not, for the most part, domestic pigs. They are wild boar that have escaped from sport swine preserves that have inadequate fencing. He said there’s “a strong and significant relationship” between sport swine facilities and the presence of feral swine roaming free.

Further, he said if the feral swine population is allowed to establish itself in Michigan, the same thing that happened to the cattle industry because of Bovine tuberculosis could happen to the pork industry. That’s because unlike domestic pigs, feral swine carry many diseases and could spread them to domestic swine.

“We actually have an opportunity to stop it before it becomes too big of a problem,” Mason said. “What we’re doing is not groundbreaking, it’s just sensible.”

According to Hines, if pseudorabies becomes a problem in Michigan, neighboring states could cut off the entire flow of pigs that are moved out of state and that would be devastating to the industry.