Escaped pets with no established population

How should we categorize animals that are feral but don’t morphologically match established feral populations?

For example, there seems to be a population of feral hogs in my area (likely descended from a few escaped pets). They’re clearly potbelly pigs, but they’re also definitely feral. I haven’t figured out if “wild boar” or “domestic pig” is a better descriptor.

Same goes for other recently feral animals, like whether pigeons clearly descended from racing pigeons should be called “feral pigeon” or “domestic pigeon.”

1 Like