ABSTRACT
Wild pigs are perhaps the most abundant, widespread, and ecologically significant introduced large vertebrate found on oceanic islands in the Pacific basin. The Pacific islands include more than 2,000 islands that lie within the Pacific Ocean with a diversity of geographic, climatic, and ecological features, including incredible biodiversity. Pigs are culturally and socially important for at least 2 reasons: the contemporary popularity of subsistence and recreational hunting on many Pacific islands, and the traditional mythological, religious, and ceremonial symbolism of pigs throughout Polynesia, particularly the Hawaiian legend of Kamapua‘a, the hog child demigod. The remarkable history of wild pigs in the central Pacific islands originated with the banded pig from Southeast Asia, which were brought for subsistence on oceanic voyages by the Neolithic Lapita culture, ancestors of the Polynesians. Wild pigs have been successfully eradicated from some insular ecosystems on the periphery of the Pacific region.
