![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/angela-pauls.jpg\")
Pauls, who has developed a special bond with the rescued boar, tried appealing Yellowhead County council’s decision so she can keep him. (Jamie McCannel\/CBC)<\/p>\nRosie’s Rescue in Yellowhead County, Alta., is wrestling with a prohibited pets bylaw, so it\u00a0can keep a wild boar.<\/p>\n
The rescue’s founder, Angela Pauls, rescued Wilber\u00a0the wild boar\u00a0from a meat farm in Whitecourt, Alta., a town just outside the county, in March 2024. She said she didn’t know what kind of pig it was at the time, but felt it was her duty to take him in anyway.<\/p>\n
Wilber was a\u00a0piglet at the time,\u00a0suffering from a variety of serious health problems, including mange, pneumonia, dermatitis and a strep virus. At one point, he was put on an oxygen tank.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Our vet had actually told us not to get her hopes up;\u00a0that he probably wouldn’t survive,” Pauls said.<\/p>\n
Wilber persevered, but\u00a0he might not get to continue his comfortable life at the Rescue for much longer, after Pauls moved her non-profit in April from Leduc County, just south of Edmonton, to Yellowhead County, about 215 kilometres west of Edmonton.<\/p>\n
Not like\u00a0other boars<\/p>\n
The county’s\u00a0council passed a\u00a0bylaw more than\u00a0six years ago that prohibits residents from keeping animals\u00a0like wild boars\u00a0as pets. Pauls said Leduc County did not have any similar bylaw.<\/p>\n
When she learned about the bylaw after moving, Pauls wrote a letter\u00a0to council, detailing Wilber’s species and medical history. But\u00a0council decided to uphold the bylaw.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You also can look at a case on a case-by-case basis and say, ‘You know what? Maybe he doesn’t pose a threat,'” Pauls said.<\/p>\n
“Whereas the wild boar farm that is in Yellowhead County, that produces wild boars\u00a0\u2026 for meat, is a much bigger threat than what my boy would be.”<\/p>\n
Pauls, who has developed a special bond with the rescued boar, tried appealing Yellowhead County council’s decision so she can keep him. (Jamie McCannel\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Originally, council ordered Pauls to kill\u00a0or remove the boar by the end of June. But they changed the requirement after an appeal, giving her six months to remove Wilber from the county.<\/p>\n
The decision was made because wild boars are considered invasive in Alberta,\u00a0Mayor Wade Williams told CBC\u00a0News, adding that the council is\u00a0policy-driven and is not making any exceptions.<\/p>\n
Pauls finds that perplexing, though.<\/p>\n
“I’m not a random resident here in the county. I am a registered\u00a0not-for-profit,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We didn’t go seeking this kind of pet. A rescue will help wherever it needs to help, and I don’t think that [Wilber]\u00a0should be discriminated against.”<\/p>\n
Pauls said Wilber poses no threat\u00a0because he has been neutered, and is being kept in an enclosure he cannot escape.<\/p>\n
![\"Boar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/wilber-in-turtle-pool.jpg\")
Pauls describes Wilber as a curious pig who like belly rubs and attention. (Jamie McCannel\/CBC)<\/p>\n
But under the right conditions, wild boars can sow a messy web of destruction in the environments they live in, according to\u00a0Megan Evans, executive director of the Alberta\u00a0Invasive Species Council, a non-profit.<\/p>\n
“They’re quick to reproduce,” she said.<\/p>\n
Wild boars reach sexual maturity between six and 10 months old, Evans said. They can\u00a0have two litters per year, and average\u00a0six piglets per litter.<\/p>\n
“That’s almost an exponential population growth, if all of those pigs survive,” she said.<\/p>\n
A threat to Alberta’s ecosystem<\/p>\n
Wild boars check all the boxes of an invasive species, Evans said.<\/p>\n
They are omnivores,\u00a0thus can survive in most\u00a0environments, she said. They can ruin crop fields, such as by turning them over to search\u00a0for tubers and grubs, or eating growing crops, like corn.<\/p>\n
In some cases, wild boards have been “really destructive” to native grasslands and the birds that live there, she said, noting that\u00a0they’ll turn over turf grass.<\/p>\n
The animal is still relatively new to Alberta’s ecosystem: they were introduced to the Prairies in the 1980s as a way to diversify agriculture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the Agricultural Service Boards, Alberta has 13 wild boar farms.<\/p>\n
“From an invasive\u00a0species ecological perspective, the wild boar farms in Alberta are the source of our wild boar at large,” Evans said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wild boars that go on the lam\u00a0are one of the biggest reasons why the provincial government\u00a0can’t keep track of the animal’s population.<\/p>\n
Currently, it’s up to municipalities to draft bylaws prohibiting the ownership of animals they consider to be pests. But in a statement, the Office of Agriculture\u00a0and Irrigation\u00a0Minister RJ Sigurdson\u00a0told CBC\u00a0News that the province would consider making changes to legislation at large regarding wild boars, after enough feedback and research.<\/p>\n
“When at large, wild boar are an invasive, destructive pest that poses a serious risk for the introduction and spread of foreign animal diseases, which could have massive financial impacts for the entire livestock industry,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Pauls is looking into legal avenues to keep Wilber by her side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If you sit down, he will lay down beside you. He wants you to rub his belly. He wants you to rub his feet,” she said.<\/p>\n
The fence of his enclosure is well over a metre tall, so he cannot jump over it, Pauls said. But he’ll prop himself up and take treats gently from a person’s hand.<\/p>\n
“He’s just so sweet, he really is,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rosie’s Rescue in Yellowhead County, Alta., is wrestling with a prohibited pets bylaw, so it\u00a0can keep a wild…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-28366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}