The Ridiculous Expansion of Wild Pigs w/Forrest Galante | Joe Rogan

You know they were talking about Hawaii, you know, and all these different invasive species that live in Hawaii. And there was this discussion about pigs. And they were saying, you know, like we should really take the pigs off of Hawaii. And a lot of the people in Hawaii like hang on. We've been here as long as the pigs. So like, are we invasive? Like what's invasive now? When does it become, because obviously like luau's, they're synonymous with like eating pigs. Huge. And wild pigs are a big part of, you know, the people that hunt in Hawaii. That's their food source. Yeah. So they're like, well, would it, but then you have a situation like Lanai, where I go every year. The axis deer? Yeah, which is terrible. Environmentally, it's a disaster. Right. Like it's all wrong. Right. There's 30,000 deer on this one island. That many? 30,000. Really? They're guessing. The estimates between 20 and 30,000. And there's 3000 people. Yeah. And dude, you ain't never seen anything like it because it's a little ass island. You drive around the whole thing in an hour. I mean, maybe a little bit more than that, but not much. It's a tiny fucking island. And there's so many deer. Yeah. You'll see them on, like you'll get your binoculars out and you look at this huge field and you're like, Oh my God. You'll see a thousand. Oh, you're kidding. No. Wow. It's crazy. It's so unnatural. No predators, only humans, plenty of food. Right. Right. And they're just, the population's exploded. Everywhere. Yeah. And they're damn delicious. Right. I have heard that before. For people who live there, it's amazing. You know, like if you don't have to have much money to eat really well, you get a rifle, you go out there, bang, you got a deer and you could shoot as many as you want. Right. You could shoot seven in a day and stockpile your freezer and have all your meat for the year. And they're that abundant. Like if someone wanted to stockpile. Oh my God. Yeah. The only thing that keeps me from killing a ton of them is that I use a bow and arrow and it's really hard to do with a bow and arrow because they're so fast and they evolved in Asia to get away from tigers. They're an Indian animal. Right. Right. So it's super fast. It's a tough argument that could, because you're right. Like Hawaiian people, the pig is culturally significant to them. You know, just like probably access deers to the people of Linnae and has been for however long the deer have been there. But I guess it's like at what cost, right? Right. At what cost, if, and I don't think this is the case, but if someone said, look, if I know these pigs are culturally significant to you, but if we leave them here, the whole islands ecosystem will collapse. There'll be no birds, no fish, no lizards, nothing. Is it worth it to have pigs? Right. And it's delicate. The pigs in particular, right? Because they eat everything. They eat ground nesting birds. They'll devastate everything that's in front of their roots. They'll fuck up every tree, everything that's coming up, all the sprouts. Everything. Yeah. They're super destructive. Here, they're destructive here in California. Yeah. They're not related to Hawaii. Everywhere that we've brought pigs, they've done a lot of damage. We're actually going to, we're talking about this out here. We're going to film something about hunting pigs at Tahoe Ranch. Because Tahoe Ranch, the place gets devastated. Their agriculture gets devastated by these pigs. There's so many of them. And they're all over. Northern California has a problem in San Jose. They're in people's yards. They're destroying shit. Because if you don't kill them, they just breed and breed and breed and breed and breed and breed and then they just expand. And they're dealing with them now, even in the northern part of the United States. They're dealing with them in the northeast. There was a New York Times article about it. See if you can find that from two days ago about the expansion of wild pigs. Is that they're starting to make their way into the northeastern states. And they're just, they can't be stopped. They can survive in any weather. They breed three times a year. They're viable, I think, from the time they're five to six months old. They have their first litter. Feral pigs roam the south now, even in northern states aren't safe. The swine have established themselves in Canada. Oh, wow. And are encroaching on border states like Montana and North Dakota. Fuck man, if they get into Montana... They'll do so much damage. You know what's crazy about the feral pigs in the United States? They were brought here by, I believe, Christopher Columbus, starting with six animals. Whoa. So the entire 200 million or whatever it is across the US, I don't know the number, it was like six or eight or 10 original pigs that were brought in by Christopher Columbus and dropped in Florida. That's insane. That's, you want to talk about how crazy they can reproduce and how much damage they do. Like think of the biomass of those animals stemming off of like six of them. That's insane. And they're so tough you can put them on a boat and they'll make it across the ocean. Oh yeah. No, they're a mate. And they are terrible for the environment. Like they do so much damage to native species, to riparian habitat. Like you said, we were talking about it out there briefly and it's a good thing. People should realize that invasive species like that should not be in an ecosystem. Well they certainly shouldn't be in an ecosystem when there's no balance, right? If they're like warthogs and they're in Africa, there's a system for that. Exactly. Like they're supposed to be there. Warthogs are wild looking creatures, aren't they? You've seen one in person? Yeah, yeah, I grew up there. I grew up in Zimbabwe. Oh, that's right. That's right. I actually got a pretty funny story about a warthog. My uncle, my mom's brother, we were out on safari one time and he was young. He was much younger than my mother, so he was maybe a teenager or something. And he grabbed this plum and started going for a walk across camp. And anyway, this warthog decided it wanted this plum. And so it came trotting after my uncle and started chasing him in circles around this tree. But my uncle was so panicked by this thing chasing him around this big baobab tree that he wouldn't drop the plum. So he's just in this perpetual cycle of being chased around this tree until he eventually threw the plum and the warthog just veered off and went for the plum. Lucky didn't want him. Yeah, they're very funny, very mischievous. I love the way their tails stick up through the grass when they're running around. They're weird looking. They're related to pigs, right? In some sort of way? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. They're all that same family. Speaking of weird pigs, are you familiar with the barber rusa? No. This is one we should pull up. You're going to love this animal. Yeah. You're going to love this. It's one of my top bucket list animals to see in the wild. It's a great name. Yeah. The barber rusa. I don't even want to tell you what it is until you see the image because you're going to be like, no way that's real. It looks like something out of Star Wars. Really? And it's a pig. Where does it live? Indonesia. How big is it? Maybe 200 pounds. I'm not positive on the size. Boom. Look at that thing. Look at those tusks growing out of its face. What the fuck is those things that grow out of the middle of its head? It's crazy. Look at that one. What the ... Bro, that does not look real. Right? Does that look like something out of Star Wars? Yes. That's a real animal. That looks like an avatar creature. That's what it looks like. Is that fighting something? Looks like it. What's it fighting there? Oh my God. The barber rusa is going to war. It says pig deer. They call it a pig deer? Yeah, it says barber rusa or pig deer. This might be somebody just making a guess. Like their nickname of it? I actually think they're having sex there. Oh, getting it on. That's not fighting. That's just more barber rusas. That's just shitty barber rusa jujitsu. Yeah, that's the kind of fighting mommy and daddy do late at night. Mommy and daddy were just playing. Don't worry. No one's getting hurt. Mommy was gagging. Yeah, but aren't they wild? Look at that one right there, Jamie. Well, who are you cursors? Click on that one. What the fuck, man? Isn't that a wild pig? The things coming out of it, the tusks that come out of the middle of its head are so strange. Like where did that come from? I don't know why you evolved that. Maybe like a peacock's tail for showmanship. But what's really crazy about them evolving those two teeth, their tusks out of their bridge of their snout, is if they're not broken in fights and rooting around, they can grow long enough that they will puncture the animal in the head and kill it. I've heard of that. Oh, that's these animals. Oh, you know why? Because I put an image of it on my Instagram. It was one of those Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself memes. Oh, yeah. I saw a few of those. You threw up. A barberousa skull, actually. Oh, saying that it can do that? It actually was driving into its own head, growing into its own head. Yeah, like that. Yeah, insane. That's crazy. Like maybe that's nature's way of saying, all right, enough. Check, please. Your assholes will live forever and eat everything in front of you. Like that one. Look at that. Yeah, there it is. Growing into its own brain. Imagine one day you have like a little bit of a headache and the next day it just gets a little worse. You're like, what is going on? And what do you do? You go and hit that against the ground, it's only going to get worse. Right. It's already in your brain. Yeah. Yeah, you'd have to get it. You'd have to be smart enough to find a branch where you could slip that over and torque your head. Yeah. Snap it off. I don't think that's happening if you're a pig. Is this awful? I mean, often this happens where they kill themselves by growing that tusk into their brain? Look at that. I don't know. That looks like two of them heading that direction. Fuck. A crazy animal. What a beautiful animal, though. There's an extinct subspecies of those called the Malokan barbarusa, which in the single island near Sulawesi used to be. And then they think people have hunted them to extinction, localized extinction within that island and that subspecies. But some people I know that worked over there ate one. So they're like, yeah, no, we ate this wild pig with these crazy horns. And I was like, yeah, this was like two years ago. And they have no proof and they don't have the skull and they don't have the picture. They were traveling and they're like, yeah, yeah, we got back and we ate this pig with these wild horns on this particular island. And I was like, wait, is that possibly a Malokan barbarusa? I was like, I don't know. And you look where they were and what they said and what they ate. And it's like, oh, that could be an extinct subspecies that you guys consumed. Well, how many biologists are actually actively out there looking for these creatures? Well, those I would say zero currently, that species. But with regards to this field of presumed extinct animals, it seems to be a movement that's expanding.