Italy Has Wild Boar Troubles
11-05-2015, 06:43 AM
#1
Boone & Crockett
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Comance county, OK
Posts: 11,408
Italy Has Wild Boar Troubles
According to this article wild boars were extinct across most of Italy by the 1800s. Then Eurasian boars were imported into Tuscany and other parts of Italy for hunting in the 1950s. Now the place is overrun with wild boars. Tuscany is also wine country and boars love ripe grapes.
Boars have killed at least two people in Italy:
http://news.yahoo.com/italy-hunts-so...113431651.html
Boars have killed at least two people in Italy:
Isolated accounts of attacks on people have also stoked concern. A man died in the northern town of Iseo in May, apparently bitten by a boar, and media said a pensioner was attacked and killed while walking his dog in Sicily.
11-05-2015, 07:47 AM
#2
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 9,230
Most of mainland Europe has a lot of wild boar. I never hunted them in Italy but I did in Portugal once. That was an interesting experience. The European hunting culture is completely different than the hunting culture here.
11-05-2015, 09:51 AM
#4
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Germany/Calif.
Posts: 2,664
Most of Europe has Boar trouble. The animal rights people and their allies the Greenies went on a crusade and had a lot of legislation passed limiting hunting in the last couple of decades (Europe wide). They also implemented bureaucratic stumbling blocks, such as increasing the qualifications to be issued a Hunting license.
The result is a typical example of unintended consequences. The balance between wildlife populations and available habitat has shifted. Agriculture has suffered and wildlife mankind conflicts have increased.
A side note, the bureaucrats have found themselves in a quandary. The revenues generated by hunters, fees, licensing and lease holdings has declined. Their answer was to increase the fees, across the board, to try and keep the revenues up. They are slowly but surely pricing themselves out do the market. Blue collar hunters (and young hunters) are getting really rare here, they have been legislated and priced out of the market.
You sometimes have to Wonder if the people who decide policy, in liberal movements or government, are even marginally competent. And even think past next week, much less years down the road. Shortsightedness, cause and effect and unintended consequences never seem to enter into their thinking processes. The term knee jerk liberal comes to mind.
Just a couple of weeks ago I saw a sounder in a village park, in the middle of a place called Forest Estates. I've never seen them there before (in the last forty years). The residents were all excited, mother nature right here among us. They never stopped to think one aggressive Hog could ruin their whole day.
County wide we have 1-2 Wild Boar attacks on humans (with injuries) a year. The tendency is increasing as the number of Boar increase, conflict is inevitable.
Imported Boar to Italy my rear end. The south side of the Alps has always been full of Boar. And Boar are travelers, twenty miles a night isn't unusual. Many of Italys neighbors have always had large Boar populations. If Boar were nearly extinct in Italy it was likely from over hunting and replacements could freely wander in from Slovenia.
Just a little info, so you know where bad policy making can lead too.
0.4% of the population here are active hunters, about 6% in the U.S.A.
The result is a typical example of unintended consequences. The balance between wildlife populations and available habitat has shifted. Agriculture has suffered and wildlife mankind conflicts have increased.
A side note, the bureaucrats have found themselves in a quandary. The revenues generated by hunters, fees, licensing and lease holdings has declined. Their answer was to increase the fees, across the board, to try and keep the revenues up. They are slowly but surely pricing themselves out do the market. Blue collar hunters (and young hunters) are getting really rare here, they have been legislated and priced out of the market.
You sometimes have to Wonder if the people who decide policy, in liberal movements or government, are even marginally competent. And even think past next week, much less years down the road. Shortsightedness, cause and effect and unintended consequences never seem to enter into their thinking processes. The term knee jerk liberal comes to mind.
Just a couple of weeks ago I saw a sounder in a village park, in the middle of a place called Forest Estates. I've never seen them there before (in the last forty years). The residents were all excited, mother nature right here among us. They never stopped to think one aggressive Hog could ruin their whole day.
County wide we have 1-2 Wild Boar attacks on humans (with injuries) a year. The tendency is increasing as the number of Boar increase, conflict is inevitable.
Imported Boar to Italy my rear end. The south side of the Alps has always been full of Boar. And Boar are travelers, twenty miles a night isn't unusual. Many of Italys neighbors have always had large Boar populations. If Boar were nearly extinct in Italy it was likely from over hunting and replacements could freely wander in from Slovenia.
Just a little info, so you know where bad policy making can lead too.
0.4% of the population here are active hunters, about 6% in the U.S.A.
11-06-2015, 05:11 AM
#5
Fork Horn
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: North Texas
Posts: 242
This is the first case mentioned.
http://www.thelocal.it/20150128/wild...sery-in-umbria
This is the one that killed the pensioner. Note that his wife was also injured.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0QD0KL20150808
Statistically, these sorts of events happening to non-hunters are extremely rare. There is just so much else to be concerned about being dangerous that comes ahead of wild hogs. With that said, the damage they do the agriculture isn't statistically insignificant at all.
http://www.thelocal.it/20150128/wild...sery-in-umbria
This is the one that killed the pensioner. Note that his wife was also injured.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0QD0KL20150808
Statistically, these sorts of events happening to non-hunters are extremely rare. There is just so much else to be concerned about being dangerous that comes ahead of wild hogs. With that said, the damage they do the agriculture isn't statistically insignificant at all.
11-06-2015, 07:56 AM
#6
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Germany/Calif.
Posts: 2,664
Here farmers and forestry workers seem to be the most at risk. Often the forestry workers doing inspections and marking trees for harvest surprise a sleeping sounder or happen upon an aggressive Hog . They say getting trampled in a stampede is more likely than an out right attack. Getting between a 20 hog sounder and where they want to flee too, is to be avoided. Or the farmers injure a Boar with farm machinery and it attacks. Sometimes the Hogs just get ornery and go after anybody.
Here the forestry workers traditionally all had a Weimaraner that accompanied them on their inspection tours. Most of the old timers still have one, kind of like a Dalmatian for firefighters, a tradition.
I've watched the Italians hunt, I was underwhelmed by their methods. If it moves shoot at it, they wound a lot of game. Sure their are exceptions, but generally they are flat dangerous. I guess in Italy whomever takes the first shoot has a claim, here it is whomever takes the last (killing) shot. Lots of hand waving and arguing on an Italian hunt. Bird hunting in Italy is the exception, some of those guys can shoot.
Agriculture damage is extensive here. It is unbelievable how much damage a Sounder of Hogs can do in a single night. I mean acres of crops destroyed in a single night, most every night. What they don't eat they trample.
Many of the Sounders here have decided the safest places are right up next to industrial parks and towns. Which makes hunting them interesting. And human, Hog, conflicts inevitable.
Here the forestry workers traditionally all had a Weimaraner that accompanied them on their inspection tours. Most of the old timers still have one, kind of like a Dalmatian for firefighters, a tradition.
I've watched the Italians hunt, I was underwhelmed by their methods. If it moves shoot at it, they wound a lot of game. Sure their are exceptions, but generally they are flat dangerous. I guess in Italy whomever takes the first shoot has a claim, here it is whomever takes the last (killing) shot. Lots of hand waving and arguing on an Italian hunt. Bird hunting in Italy is the exception, some of those guys can shoot.
Agriculture damage is extensive here. It is unbelievable how much damage a Sounder of Hogs can do in a single night. I mean acres of crops destroyed in a single night, most every night. What they don't eat they trample.
Many of the Sounders here have decided the safest places are right up next to industrial parks and towns. Which makes hunting them interesting. And human, Hog, conflicts inevitable.
Last edited by MudderChuck; 11-06-2015 at 08:03 AM.
