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An industrial Doctorate project between Minuartia and IRBio UB studies how to mitigate conflicts between humans and wild boars

A study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment by Joana Colomer phD in Industrial Minuartia and the Biodiversity Research Institute –IRBio UB, Carme Rosell (Minuartia), José Domingo Rodriguez-Teijeiro (IRBio and Dept of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Biology of the UB) and Giovanna Massei (Agency for Animal and Plant Health of the United Kingdom), describes the reserve effect and the opportunities involved for the control of wild boar populations and mitigate the conflicts they cause. The initial study was funded by the Diputació de Barcelona, and was carried out in two nature reserves within the Montseny Natural Park.


Original news: www.ub.edu (06/07/2021) · Industrial Doctorate Project between the company Minuartia and the Biodiversity Research Institute –IRBio UB

 

Growth of wild boar populations

 

Wild boar populations have grown a lot in recent decades throughout Europe. This growth has occurred for different reasons, such as the great adaptability of this species to colonize several habitats, the lack of natural predators and a high reproductive rate. The combination of these factors means that this species has a great capacity to occupy new territories and even to inhabit urban areas, increasingly more frequently.

This fact makes the interaction between wild boar and human activity inevitable, and the conflicts it causes have increased in recent years. Some of the most frequent are damage to agriculture, infrastructures, traffic accidents, risk of disease transmission, impacts on biodiversity conservation, among others. In addition, these impacts also have important economic implications, since the costs derived from accidents and damages caused by wild boar amount to millions of euros.

Damage mitigation and control of wild boar populations

 

To mitigate these impacts, control of the wild boar population is necessary, involving the various agents involved, such as wildlife managers, land owners, farmers, hunters and public administrations, including animal health services, in the context of the risk of expansion of African Swine Fever. Population control is mainly done by recreational hunting, to a lesser extent by administrative captures.

In this study, by means of phototrapping cameras, the presence of wild boars was evaluated within two natural reserve areas, where regular wild boar hunting is not allowed, and only sporadic hunts are allowed for population control. The results indicate that these areas act as shelters where wild boars escape from the hunting areas around them. This phenomenon is called the "reserve effect" and causes increases in density located in areas where hunting is forbidden.

The results also show that organized hunts inside these reserves are effective, and with a single action a very significant decrease in density can be achieved, which is also maintained for a long period of time. Therefore, the existence of these refuge areas also presents opportunities to apply very efficient population control measures. These results are also relevant for the management of outbreaks of diseases in wild boars, such as African Swine Fever during the phases of control and eradication. It can also be applicable to vaccination campaigns against diseases.