Rural France facing a boar invasion

The wild boar population is soaring at an alarming rate right across Europe, despite the best efforts of hunters. The problem is becoming serious in France, particularly in the centre and on the Millevaches plateau in southern Creuse, the problem is almost out of control.
Despite a nationwide drive to check their numbers, launched last year by the environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, the boar population is still rising steadily. Even a tenfold increase in the number being shot by hunters over the last 30 years (more than 560,000 were slaughtered in France in 2009) has failed to quell their numbers. In Creuse, the rise is even more marked: in 1989, 51 boar were shot in the green and blue department; last year that number was 3,600, and still the numbers rise.
The problem is not restricted to France, however; in Germany, Italy and across almost the whole of Europe, wild pigs have seen a spectacular population boom in recent decades.
Although the most common complaint you will hear is from farmers with damaged crops, wild boar do pose other problems. There were 20,800 collisions between cars and boar in France last year, at an estimated cost of well over €100 million. The health of the boar entering the food chain can also be a worry. A sample of the viscera has to be sent to the local veterinary laboratory before boar can be sold as meat. The principal concern is trichinella, a type of parasite that is quite widespread and can be transmitted to humans if they eat undercooked or raw pig meat. Freezing the meat for three weeks and then cooking it until the juices run clear is an adequate preventive measure.
In Germany the potential worries are worse as wild boar are still feeding on mushrooms, truffles and berries contaminated with caesium from the Chernobyl disaster nearly 25 years ago.
As a number of specialists have now pointed out, the wild boar population needs to be managed more effectively, but what can be done? It helps to start with what makes wild boar so successful. They are omnivorous, opportunistic and highly mobile, able to cover between 2 and 15 km a day. They will eat almost anything they come across, including grass, nuts, berries, carrion, roots, tubers, refuse, insects, small reptiles - even young deer and lambs.
Boar are prolific breeders. A sow can become fertile at as young as eight months old if she has access to good feeding. Litter size varies between two and six depending on the weight of the animal. They have also proved adept at finding various ways round the hunting strategies that have successfully checked the proliferation of other mammals such as deer or mountain goats.
“Under favourable environmental conditions, the sows start reproducing after only a year, whereas other ungulates [hoofed mammals] take twice as long. Every year they produce a litter of five piglets on average, whereas most other species only have one at a time,” says Eric Baubet, head of the boar study programme at France's Wildlife and Hunting Agency (ONCFS).
“The females seem to be reproducing increasingly young and the conventional pattern for reproduction, with a pause in the summer, is often no longer valid,” says François Klein, who co-ordinates research into deer and wild boar at the agency.
One local famer near Gentioux knows exactly why so many crops are being damaged: “There is a population explosion of boar, the likes of which we have never seen before. In the commune of Gentioux we recently identified 15 or so herds, with 30 pigs in each herd!”
Jouanny Chatoux, vice-president of the Young Farmers association claims the situation is becoming serious. “The south [of the Creuse] is the most severely affected, but also the east. Because of the departmental policy from 10 years ago of feeding the wild boar, mothers are now carrying more litters and carrying them at a younger age. It is the fault of the departmental chasse.” By way of proof, Mr Chatoux points out that of the 6 hectares of maize in the commune of Gentioux, 4 hectares have been completely destroyed. This in itself is becoming expensive as farmers can claim compensation for damage to crops caused by boar. In 2009, the total paid out was €160,000; in 2010, with the season still under way, that figure has already topped €500,000.
“The farmers are at their wits end,” continued Jouanny Chatoux: “Some businesses risk going under. People should know that every night farmers are patrolling with guns to self-regulate the problem. I have heard that in some communes, large ditches have been dug to contain the bodies of the dead boar. Why can the boar not be classified as a ‘nuisance’ for a few years? We should be able to hunt them, with or without a permit.” ■