Haifa: Wild Boars Take Over the City

Some human residents are delighted, others are annoyed or frightened and now carry sticks on their walks.

Haifa's wild boars may not fly, but they seem to do just about everything else.

A photo of a wild boar taking a nap on a mattress next to a rubbish bin recently became an internet sensation.

Haifa sits at the foot of Mount Carmel and is home to wild boars, foxes, jackals, and other wildlife, all of which have been protected from hunting under Israeli law since 2019.

Previously largely confined to the many ravines that run through this hilly Mediterranean port city, the wild boars have become increasingly bold in recent years, now regularly venturing into built-up areas, undeterred by their human neighbours.

«It has become like an everyday thing«, said Eugene Notkov, 35, a chef who lets his dog play with the wild boars that roam the local parks. «They are part of our city«, he added. Encountering one is «like seeing a squirrel«.

In many countries, wildlife sightings have increased since the pandemic began and people vacated public spaces. But Haifa's wild boars started their conquest long before the coronavirus arrived. In 2019, residents reported 1,328 sightings to city authorities – almost 40 percent more than in 2015.

The growing presence of wild boars has stirred controversy in local discourse. For some, they represent a threat, and the city council is held responsible for their presence. For others, they are a charming addition to an already unusual place.

Haifa's ethnic composition is also atypical: it is one of the few Israeli cities where Jews live alongside a considerable number of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up around 10 percent of the city's population. It is home to the leader of the country's largest Arab political party, and its residents elected a female mayor before Jerusalem or Tel Aviv did.

«I wish we could all learn in Israel to live the way they live in Haifa«, said Edna Gorney, poet, ecologist and lecturer at the University of Haifa. «It is an example of coexistence — not only between Arabs and Jews, but also between humans and wildlife.«

No one agrees on why the wild boars are now coming to Haifa in such large numbers. Some wonder whether the major fire in and around Haifa in 2016 destroyed the wild boars' natural habitat and forced them into the city. Others claim it was the mayor's 2019 decision to stop shooting the wild boars.

However, statistics show that wild boar incursions were already increasing at the time of the shooting. And ecologists say that wild boars still have plenty of food in the nearby gorges outside Haifa. The real reason for their presence in the city, said the Haifa City Council's in-house ecologist, is that people leave too much food waste in places that are even more accessible than the gorges.

«It's easy to find food in the city«, said Yael Olek, the municipal ecologist. «And they don't have to search long for it.»

«It's not an ecological problem«, he added. «It's a social problem.»