Hunting and Fauna: Wild boars on the rise throughout Europe, hunting is not enough

Hunting and Wildlife: Wild boars on the rise throughout Europe, hunting is not enough

di Benjo

May 22, 2015

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Reading time: 4 minutes of reading

Hunting and Wildlife: Boar populations on the rise across Europe, containment with the hunting is not sufficient.

According to the study “Wild boar populations up, numbers of hunters down? A review of trends and implications for Europe ", published in Pest Management Science, wild boars are spreading rapidly not only in Italy:" Throughout Europe, wild boar numbers increased in the 60s and 70s, but stabilized in the 80s; recent evidence suggests that the number and impact of boar it has grown steadily since the 80s ».

As hunting is the main cause of mortality for this species (Sus scrofa), the researchers led by the biologist Giovanna Massei, who deals with wildlife for the National Wildlife Management Center - Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) in York, Great Brittany, analyzed hunting wild boar culls and hunting population trends in 18 European countries from 1982 to 2012. Then the researchers used hunting statistics and the number of hunters as indicators of the number of animals and the number of hunters. hunting pressure and say that "The results confirmed that wild boar has steadily increased across Europe, while the number of hunters has remained relatively stable or decreased in most countries."

The conclusion is that “Recreational hunting is not sufficient to limit the growth of the wild boar population and the relative impact of hunting on wild boar mortality has decreased. Other factors, such as mild winters, reforestation, intensification of agricultural production, supplementary feeding and compensatory responses to hunting pressure of the wild boar population could also explain the population growth. As populations continue to grow, unless this trend reverses, more human-wild boar conflicts are expected. New interdisciplinary approaches are urgently needed to mitigate the man-boar conflicts, which are otherwise destined to grow further ».

Michele Favaron, of the Legal Intervention Group - Padua, points out a contradiction - moreover often found on the pages of greenreport.it regarding the Tuscan situation - which is this: "We would expect this to be in an inversely proportional relationship with the number of hunters. In a nutshell: more hunters, fewer wild boars; more wild boars, fewer hunters. Misleading simplification ».

Favaron gives the example of Veneto, «Where was a Napoleonic army of“ selecontrollori ”(hunters) baked for hunting wild boar? How to justify 15 years of failure of the plans to slaughter wild boars in the Euganean Hills? How to clear up for almost ten thousand animals killed in a protected natural area "? How to excuse wasted millions of euros and have allowed 67 local hunters to shoot in the Park? How to motivate the full-time employment of the 30 regional forest workers (now, moreover, left at home) to hunt wild boars in the Euganean Hills? How to re-read the proclamations of Coldiretti and the CIA asking (and asking!) To shoot more? It is as clear as the sun (and it had been for years!) That hunting, with all its baggage of corruption, turbidity and total absence of methodological rigor, could not and cannot be an answer to the numerical containment of wild boars, as well as of the fallow deer of the Euganean Hills. Correctly reading the data of the killing of wild boars on the Euganean Hills had warned for some time, not only on the ineffectiveness of hunting, but even on the aggravation of the situation due to it ».

Favaron perhaps generalizes and other experiences seem to have been more successful, but the moral of the story that draws from it regarding the situation he seems to know better is that "Since February 2015 the Euganean Hills Park Authority has completely emptied its coffers and not he has a penny more to waste on killing nearly a thousand wild boars a year. The 30 regional forest workers, employed in "noble" operations of killing and transporting wild animals to the slaughterhouse, were not recruited by the Veneto Region. Wild boars can be easily contacted even in the most external areas of the Park: Abano and Montegrotto Terme for example. And the vice president of the park, Lucio Trevisan, what does he do? He goes to the Prefecture to ask for the employment of the agents of the State Forestry Corps and the Provincial Police (already unavailable due to emergencies and tasks of their competence) as well as the allocation of other sums of money and the hiring of other men to ... shoot wild boars ! "

Favarn concludes by re-proposing a controversial measure that many - even among environmentalists - consider too expensive and ineffective, especially for the immediate protection of biodiversity severely affected by the presence of wild boars introduced in protected areas: "On the other hand, all the appeals and the proposals of the protectionists who, for some time now have been asking administrators, politicians and the whole community to allocate resources and money solely to control the fertility of ungulates: effective, lasting, bloodless and even cheaper in the long run! (often the only sensible actions have multiannual programming, duration and effectiveness). But after all, what could we expect: just like the economists who urge to “get out of the crisis” with the same recipes that caused the crisis; in the same way, the vice president Trevisan proposes to "increase the dose of the drug", not to stop taking it ».

(May 22, 2015)

Source: Greenreport