Using population prediction models, together with advanced mapping techniques, to determine the climatic damage caused by wild pigs on the five continents, the impact of wild boars has been determined .
An international team led by researchers from the University of Queensland (UQ), in Australia, and the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand, thus, suggests that wild boars , by uprooting carbon trapped in the soil, wild boars release about 4 , 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year worldwide, the equivalent of 1.1 million cars .
Threat to the climate
The models show a wide range of results, but indicate that wild pigs are most likely currently uprooting an area of between 36,000 and 124,000 square kilometers, in environments to which they are not native .
According to UQ’s Christopher O’Bryan , warns that the world’s growing wild pig population could be a major threat to the climate:
When soil is removed by humans plowing a field or, in this case, by wild animals pulling it up, carbon is released into the atmosphere. Since the soil contains almost three times more carbon than the atmosphere, even a small fraction of carbon emitted by the soil can accelerate climate change.