"Killer" boars population boom, fear Italian farmers

 ROME, -- With two motorists dying in the space of 48 hours due to wild boars on the road, and a man being killed by a collision with one of the creatures earlier this month, the increasing wild boar population in Italy has disturbed farmers and the public.

 39 year-old Domenica Fedele was killed on Wednesday when he hit a wild boar who was on the road in Tuscany, the collision launching him from his car and killing him on impact. Cristian Carosi, 39, also suffered the same fate just hours before in Abruzzo, central Italy, who was driving to his tobacconist’s shop when the violent impact of the boar caused his vehicle to turn over several times before slamming into a tree.

 On August 8 another fatal encounter occurred with the wild animal when a couple were holidaymaking in Cefalù, Sicily, and a boar killed the 77 year-old husband and injured his wife.

 The Italy’s main association for farmers, Coldiretti, attribute these incidents to the uncontrolled population growth of wild boars in the last few years. According to data from ISPRA, an Italian institute for environmental protection and research, the wild boar population was estimated to be less than 600,000 in 2005. The figure is said to have almost doubled in ten years, with an estimated 900,000 in 2010 and now over a million. WWF research has said that the reproduction rate can vary from 100 percent to 200 percent in relation to the weather and the availability of food, making it very possible that this estimation is a reality.

 In an interview with the head of Environment at Coldiretti Stefano Masini, Masini chalked the population boom up to the mass exodus of people from the central “spine” of Italy and the poor management of wildlands. Another contributing factor is the 11 million-hectare increase in forested land in the area, which has favoured the wild boar populations, as there are no predators such as wolves to hunt them.

 For Coldiretti, the consequences are evident and serious: in the northern Lombardy region alone, 500 incidents occur annually because of wild animals according to the regional branch. Farmers could also suffer greater losses, because of the threat that wild animals pose to agricultural resources and production. Seven attacks per day occur in farmed fields (however, wild boars only represent less than 27 percent) and in the last year, damages caused by wild animals totalled 100 million euros, through disruption to harvest yields and killing livestock.

 A range of solutions has been proposed by the association, from the installation of enclosures, to laying traps and controlled culling. Masini has called for ISPRA to authorise a controlled culling in areas where the population is unsustainable, as well as for the Italian Environment Minister to act in the face of this issue.