Feral pigs invade suburban gardens in Palmerston, Northern Territory

Sandra Penna and her husband Enrico have lived on a leafy suburban street in Palmerston, a satellite city of Darwin, for nearly 30 years.

The biggest threat their Durack garden has faced for most of that time is the orange-footed scrub fowl, or "bush chook", making "a little bit of a mess", but in the past month an unexpected pest has arrived.

"We've had our garden beds totally decimated," Ms Penna said.

"We've had lots of plants totally destroyed, and some of them are quite rare plants that my husband has collected over the years."

Ms Penna said people had been posting pig sightings in local Facebook groups, so she suspected they were causing the destruction.

"People have sighted a mama pig and a papa pig and seven piglets all in tow," she said.

Ms Penna said she contacted the Palmerston Mayor Athina Pascoe-Bell about the issue.

In a statement Ms Pascoe-Bell told the ABC the council is "supporting coordination between relevant landholders and stakeholders" to manage the issue of pigs on suburban streets.

"Given the urban environment, community safety is an important consideration in how the pigs are managed," she said.

"Monitoring will help identify movement patterns and inform where trapping can be safely and effectively undertaken."

Australia's National Feral Pig Management coordinator Dr Heather Channon said feral pigs entering urban environments is uncommon, but not unheard of in Australia.

"There were stories a few years ago around Canberra, [of pigs] coming out of their normal environment and going into urban areas," she said.

"Urban and peri-urban areas provide everything that they need — they require permanent water, food and shelter, and these areas can provide that.

"People may be noticing them more often … because of the changes in weather, so seasonal conditions and the end of the dry season."

Dr Channon said while it is difficult to estimate how many feral pigs are in Australia, numbers are likely to have risen in recent years.

"Over the past five years, there's really been favourable season conditions for feral pigs across Australia in most areas, and that has supported their ability to reproduce and increase in numbers," she said.

She said feral pig management should happen before they arrive in people's backyards.

"It's really about making sure that we've got a strategy and trying to be a lot more proactive about feral pig management rather than reacting to their presence," she said.