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Wild boars run amok in Germany
photo by o2elot (Flickr CC)
Are wild boars in Germany too much of a match for farmers and even hunters that the German military must be brought in to deal with the porcine problem?
German hunting groups are dismissive of the idea, proposed by farmers. Sure, they like to shoot and eat the boars – they shot nearly 450,000 last year alone – but they don’t want to ‘wage war’ on the poor beasts.
From an AFP article:
The call for a military response comes from landowners in the wine and crop-growing western Rhineland-Palatinate region, where boar have destroyed hundreds of hectares of maize and torn up the earth so badly with their snouts that combine harvesters have been brought to a standstill.
Apparently wild pigs breed like, well… rabbits; with populations recently doubling every year. The boars have few predators and love commercial crops.
There has also been a rise in traffic accidents involving wild pigs and cases where boars ‘invaded’ a cinema and community center. According to another AFP report, they recently tore up a football pitch in Germany, leading to the cancelation of a match. Fifth division, but still.
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