Mass destruction of wild boar would be insane and dangerous

According to its Vice President Werner Schwarz, the German Farmers' Association is calling for the culling of 70 percent of all wild boar in Germany in order to prevent a possible outbreak of African swine fever. Dr. Edmund Haferbeck, agricultural scientist and head of the legal and science department at PETA, sharply criticises the farming association's demand:

PETA: Deliberate scaremongering by the Farmers' Association

«With the deliberate fearmongering around African Swine Fever, the German Farmers' Association is trying to manipulate the public and politicians into approving a campaign of extermination against our wildlife. However, the large-scale killing of wild boar would be completely senseless, as swine fever is spread primarily through contaminated food and slaughter waste — in other words, by humans themselves. Transmission to livestock facilities would, if at all, occur through farmers or workers. Only here do preventive measures make sense. Furthermore, animals respond to intensive hunting with increased reproduction rates; the population has been rising for years. The real reason behind the Farmers' Association's demand: wild boar have long been a thorn in the side of farmers, who perceive them as a threat to their large-scale maize monocultures. They are stoking hysteria around African Swine Fever in the hope of wiping out wild boar, thereby protecting their profits from cruel intensive livestock farming and environmentally damaging monocultures. This is not only ethically reprehensible, but also dangerous, as wild boar play an important role in the ecosystem, particularly for soil quality.»

Recreational Hunting Increases Wild Boar Population

The animal rights organization advocates for an end to recreational hunting of wild boar. Scientists have demonstrated that female wild boar in hunted populations reach sexual maturity earlier, which increases the birth rate [1]. Accordingly, high hunting pressure results in an increase in the wild boar population in the affected area. That recreational hunting fails as a method of population control is also confirmed by this study.

Driven hunts for wild boar are extraordinarily cruel. According to the Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare, approximately two thirds of wild boar do not die immediately during driven hunts [2]. With shattered bones and exposed entrails, the terrified animals flee, often suffering for days before dying an agonizing death. Driven hunts also promote the spread of disease. More on the animal welfare problem of recreational hunting.

[1] Servanty et al. (2009): Pulsed resources and climate-induced variation in the reproductive traits of wild boar under high hunting pressure. Journal of Animal Ecology. Nr. 78, Issue 6.

[2] Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare (no date): Animal welfare and driven hunts. Position paper of the Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare (TVT) Working Group on Wildlife and Hunting (AK 6).