Wild boars invade streets of Berlin

Berlin is being plagued by large numbers of wild boar roaming the streets and causing chaos. Wandering around on the roads, rummaging through garbage and digging up the grass the boars have become something of a nuisance. To combat the problem officials are putting up fences to try and keep them from entering built-up areas. (UnexplainedMysteries)

People in Berlin are growing used to the sight of wild boar in the streets, as increasing numbers of them come into the city to look for food. Anyone caught feeding them is fined, special fences have been built to keep them out and the city has also had to employ a wild boar hunter to try to control them. (BBC)

Hunters have long warned of the particularly dangerous nature of a pack of wild boar for years. And now the citizens of this city are getting a first hand look at how dangerous they can be. Some have welcomed the sudden onslaught of the wild animals moving into the outskirts of Berlin before receding back into the wilderness.

A report by the BBC recently showcased over a dozen of the creatures being filmed by an amateur videotaping his back yard. Over a dozen of the creatures were rifling through the garbage near homes out in the front of his house. Authorities are blaming both people who have been feeding the creatures and others who are simply looking out and snorting at the attempts of others to keep them out.

This incredible sequence of events has gained quite a bit of attention in other countries as well by sympathetic audiences who have had their own share of animal infestations. Just last year footage of several wolves rushing past a routine traffic stop in Russia made headlines when the policeman jumped into the car he had just flagged down and a pack of wolves darted past on a busy highway throwing caution to the wind and terrifying both the policeman and the audiences worldwide who watched it later. This of course raised a serious question over whether some animal populations were getting more hostile. And indeed it did seem to be the case.

But Berlin has been trying to build up fences in the mean time to keep the creatures out. With the animals becoming increasingly brazen, there are concerns they may cause traffic accidents among things once they move deeper into the city. (Unexplainable.net)

 

 

Wild boar, also wild pig, (Sus scrofa) is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises. Wild boar are native across much of Northern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean Region (including North Africa’s Atlas Mountains) and much of Asia as far south asIndonesia. Populations have also been artificially introduced in some parts of the world, most notably the Americas and Australasia, principally for hunting. Elsewhere, populations have also become established after escapes of wild boar from captivity.

Wild boar are situationally crepuscular or nocturnal, foraging in early morning and late afternoon or at night, but resting for periods during both night and day. They areomnivorous scavengers, eating almost anything they come across, including grass, nuts, berries, carrion, roots, tubers, refuse, ^{<12 >} insects and small reptiles. Wild boar in Australia are also known to be predators of young deer and lambs. If surprised or cornered, a boar (particularly a sow with her piglets) can and will defend itself and its young with intense vigor.  The male lowers its head, charges, and then slashes upward with his tusks. The female, whose tusks are not visible, charges with her head up, mouth wide, and bites. Such attacks are not often fatal to humans, but may result in severe trauma, dismemberment, or blood loss.

In recent centuries, the range of wild boar has changed dramatically, largely due to hunting by humans and more recently because of captive wild boar escaping into the wild. For many years populations dwindled. They probably became extinct in Great Britain in the 13th century. In Denmark the last boar was shot at the beginning of the 19th century, and in 1900 they were absent inTunisia and Sudan and large areas of Germany, Austria and Italy. In Russia they were extinct in wide areas in the 1930s.

A revival of boar populations began in the middle of the last century. By 1950 wild boar had once again reached their original northern boundary in many parts of their Asiatic range. By 1960 they reached Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and by 1975 they were to be found in Archangelsk and Astrakhan. In the 1970s they again occurred in Denmark and Sweden, where captive animals escaped and now survive in the wild. (The wild boar population in Sweden was estimated to be around 80,000 in 2006 but is now considered to be in excess of 100,000). In the 1990s boar migrated into Tuscany in Italy. In England, wild boar populations re-established themselves in the 1990s, after escaping from specialist farms that had imported European stock.

Elsewhere, in 1493, Christopher Columbus brought 8 hogs to the West Indies. Importation to the American mainland was in the mid 16th century by Hernan Cortes and Hernando de Soto, and in the mid 17th century by Sieur de La Salle. Pure Eurasian boar were also imported there for sport hunting in the early 20th century. Large populations of wild boar also live in Australia, New Zealand and North and South America. (Wikipedia)