California’s wild pig problem started when a rich guy imported Russian chaos hogs
Never let a rich guy add tusks to the ecosystem.
California already had feral pigs. Then a Monterey County landowner added Russian wild boars for sport hunting, and nature responded with a century-long “absolutely not.”
Like many problems in California, a rich man decided he wanted to do something and to hell with the public good. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says Spanish and Russian settlers introduced domestic pigs to California in the early 1700s. Many escaped and became feral. Then, in the 1920s, a Monterey County landowner wanted to hunt something more challenging and introduced European wild boar. The boar bred with those feral domestic pigs, creating the hybrid wild pigs that have now spread through much of the state like 200-pound rats with tusks.
This is a perfect California origin story because it begins with wealth, land, imported danger, and a hobby that becomes everyone else’s ecological bill. George Gordon Moore wanted a better hunting weekend. California got Russian boar genes mixed into feral domestic pigs, and now the state has armored rototillers tearing up hillsides, wallowing in streams, and reproducing like OnlyFans sites.
Never let a rich guy add tusks to the ecosystem.
Luckily Boston AM doesn't have many, if any invasive animals.
Trees though, invasive trees we have in plenty.
I'd say the number one invasive tree in my area is the "Tree of Heaven". It came from China to the East Coast back in the late 1700s as an ornamental shade tree.