The hunting of wild boar is an activity that comes to us from the middle ages. Wild Boar and their domesticated offspring hogs have been a staple human food. Animals were released into the forest and left to fend for themselves such that they could be hunted during the winter. Europeans moving to the new world brought this practice with them. Feral pigs were released into the wild in the US. Like many invasive species they thrived because they have no natural enemies. In US states such as Florida and Texas the feral pig population is growing in spite of our best efforts to cull a few hundred thousand animals per year. The intelligence of the animals is thwarting our efforts. Pigs travel in groups of about 15 called sounders. Due to the cooperation within the groups, traditional control methods such as trapping only catch a subset of the group leaving the rest to repopulate with their high birth rate. It is not about how many animals we cull. It is about
how many we miss and allow to go free.
Every problem is also an opportunity. Just as the buffalo were hunted to near extinction to feed the workers building the transcontinental railroads, the feral pigs could be harvested to feed the hungry in America. It just takes the technology to do it. Enter a commercial use for a drone. Unlike humans, sentry drones on solar powered charging platforms guarding the perimeter of our farms do not have gaps in their vigilance. Infrared cameras extend their surveillance to the night. As we are able to add more embedded computer intelligence to drones, it should be possible to emulate the ability of hunt dogs and herd the animals into traps or pens. In the overpopulated regions only trapping results in animals that can be used in our food chain due to rapid spoilage.
I am a firm believer that new technology will be adopted in a somewhat disruptive fashion. Technology like electric drones will open the door to new uses like sentry duty that historically were unaffordable.