California wild boars are becoming blue. Not externally, which makes it more complicated to identify the problem: electric blue is the color of their meat, it is discovered so only by killing them.
A matter of which in California has been whispered for years, to the point that many consider it as a metropolitan legend. Yet the testimonies are there, they are increasingly numerous and have exploded this summer, particularly in the area of the County of Monterey. What is exactly going on? This time it is our fault.
The blue pesticide. The first reports of 2025 arrived in March, thanks to a local hunter engaged in a control work of a small population of wild boars that had “taken home” a few steps from a ranch. While working on the corpse of a freshly hunted boar, he noticed that, undergoing, the animal meat was of a very intense electric blue. He immediately reported the thing to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, also guessing what it was: the fault of the blue color is of an anticoagulant Rodenticida (“mice poison”) called PIPHACINONE.
Against rodents. It is a mixture that is used against rats, mice, arvicles and other small similar mammals. In California it is strictly regulated, but not completely banned: it can be used, after permission, to stop the infestations from rodents.
This means that if a predator eats a mouse who in turn has ingested the Diphacinone, the substance also ends up in his stomach. Not to mention direct consumption: California wild boars, apparently, are greedy for Rodenticida pads, and destroy the boxes that contain them and “distribute” to mice and rats.
Are there alternatives? The result is that many animals in California have blue meat even if nobody notices it: Condor, black bears, lynx and obviously wild boars are all potential predators of the rodents who have eaten the Diphacinone. Which obviously has serious side effects on animals: the most frequent are the bleeding that can also be fatal. There are also humans at risk that consume contaminated meat: not even cooking manages to make the Diphacinone completely disappear.
Since the hunter discovered the blue wild boars, however, there have been no further alarms in the Monterey county. Which, however, is used to news of the genre: in addition to the wild boars, in 2021 an entire flock of bluish geese was marked.
The problem is that the Rodenticida works very well, and at the moment there are no alternative solutions; However, it is experiencing with drugs that block the reproductive functions of females, in the hope that they will be less toxic than the Diphacinone.
