The Feral Pigs Are Multiplying Fast in Australia — And They're More Dangerous Than You Think

Feral pigs are multiplying fast in Australia, and now they're walking through the suburbs of Darwin. Estimates have jumped from about 3 million to as many as 26 million, and just across the Timor Sea there's a pig disease with no vaccine. In September 2026, a family of feral pigs was caught on camera tearing up gardens in Durack, Palmerston. Dingoes, saltwater crocodiles and helicopter shooters all hunt them across the Top End, and still the numbers keep climbing. A seven-year CSIRO experiment in Kakadu National Park found what had really been holding them back. It wasn't a predator, and Australia removed it on purpose. In this Australian wildlife documentary we go from the First Fleet to the floodplains of Kakadu, uncover what that experiment revealed, and look at why African swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease on Australia's doorstep worry biosecurity experts, and what feral pigs already carry here, from Japanese encephalitis to swine brucellosis. Subscribe for more Australian animals, invasive species, dangerous wildlife and the hidden stories of wild Australia. Where are you watching from? And what worries you more: feral pigs in town, or the diseases they could carry? Tell us in the comments. #Australia #FeralPigs #Kakadu #AustralianWildlife #InvasiveSpecies #Outback #wildlife Image credits (Wikimedia Commons, cropped): scrubfowl by Wairambar Rainforest, CC BY 4.0; water buffalo at Fogg Dam by Stephen Michael Barnett, CC BY 2.0; Ubirr floodplains by Reesa sc, CC BY-SA 4.0; camera trap by Hustvedt, CC BY-SA 3.0; Kapalga by CSIRO Archives, CC BY 3.0; East Alligator River by Jamie Qi Zhou, CC BY 3.0; Kakadu from the air by Rhonda.W, CC BY-SA 4.0; pig trap by Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 2.0; wheat grains by Denis Bastianelli, CIRAD, CC BY 3.0.