 In 1769, Captain Cook travelled around New Zealand trading with local Māori, and it was in this circumstance that the humble domestic pig was first introduced into New Zealand. Now, over the years, domestic pigs escaped into the forest, and they began to revert to their wild state. They grew more muscular, grew longer hair, and longer tusks. Fast forward to today, and wild pigs are one of the most widespread exotic species in New Zealand, occupying forest habitats right across the country. So what's the big deal? Well, when pigs feed, they can smell food items below the ground, and they're rooted up with their snouts. And if you get a lot of pigs in an area together, they can root up the entire forest understory, killing native vegetation, destroying the soil community, and spreading diseases such as carry-divac. So what can we do about it? Well, in most cases, we can't get rid of the pigs. It would cost far too much money, and you'd have a lot of angry pig hunters on your hands. So it seems like in most sick cases, the best scenario is to reduce the size of the pig population down to a level in which the forest can recover. So how do we work out what that level is? Well, it's a question that my master's research hopes to answer. I'm going to be constructing a damage function for wild pig rooting in New Zealand forests. What this means is I want to look at the relationship between the size of the pig population and the amount of damage they're causing. The goal is to work out what level do we need to control pigs in order to protect our forests? So how am I going to do it? Well, first step, I need to monitor a range of pig densities. So to do this, I've got a series of motion-activated cameras that are distributed across Auckland's Hinoa Ranges. These have a motion sensor, so when a pig walks past, it triggers the camera to take a photo. I can then use these photos to work out the size of the pig population at a given time. Step two, I need to work out how much damage the pigs are causing. So to do this, from each camera station, I run out a monitoring line and measure the amount of ground that's been rooted up by the pigs. I can then use this information to work out how much damage pigs are causing at different population densities. Ultimately, by understanding the relationship between pig density and pig damage, we can hopefully make pig control a lot more cost-effective, a lot more efficient, and ensure that we're protecting our valuable forest ecosystems. I'll be handing in my thesis of February next year, so if you're interested, definitely watch this space. And thanks very much.