Our View – Wild Life

RECENT stories on the Euro Weekly News website about the ever increasing number of wild boars appearing in towns and on beaches across some parts of Spain have polarised opinion from readers.

We asked whether they are danger that should be culled or catered for because they have only moved to towns because much of their traditional land has been taken over and the drought has made it increasingly more difficult for them to find food and even water.

As will be seen on our Community Comments page, the response to the question was large and generally on the side of the boars.

We expectedly had a few tongue in cheek responses with jokers suggesting that they were best served with a good chianti or were ideal for the plancha but on balance the majority seemed to feel that humans owe a debt to look after the animals.

What we tend to overlook is the fact that they are breeding more quickly as there have been several wild boar and escaped pig mating so there are more of these hybrids fighting for less space and food.

An added problem is that research from the University of Queensland says that by uprooting carbon trapped in soil, wild pigs are releasing around 4.9 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually across the globe, the equivalent of 1.1 million cars.

This is therefore a potentially growing problem both from incursions into urban areas as well as added pollution.

We don’t have a proposed solution but do recognise that the National Government (when there is one) will need to create a sensible policy to recognise the signs of danger and deal with it.