Cristina Garcia Married | Salamanca (EFE).- The Junta de Castilla y León finalizes an order to make wild boar hunting more flexible as a measure to control wildlife within the framework of actions against bovine tuberculosis, whose management led to an attempt to enter by force at the regional headquarters in Salamanca on June 5.
The “Wild Boar Management Plan”, to whose draft EFE has had access, will be partially applied throughout the community but declares a hunting emergency in the municipalities with the highest risk of tuberculosis, which are Salamanca and Ávila above all, but also in Palencia , Leon and Segovia.
The wild boar is the largest reservoir of bovine tuberculosis in the wildlife of Spain, which is why its control is something demanded by both farmers and veterinarians, who estimate that this animal already has three times the population of what would be normal.
“As the rural population decreases, that of the wild boar increases. We have not participated in the drafting of the plan, but this is an issue that we have been talking about. In some countries that have taken measures of this type, such as Germany, the one who executes is the Army, thus preventing it from being hunted as such,” Luciano Díez, president of the Council of Veterinary Colleges of Castilla y León, explained to EFE.
The professionals in the field explain that it is impossible to advance in the eradication of tuberculosis if only the domestic fauna is controlled, with the sanitation of the cows, while these animals share watering holes and pastures with infected wildlife.
Bovine tuberculosis was the cause behind the cattle protest on June 5 that ended with an attempt to force their way into the Junta’s headquarters in Salamanca, a province where the prevalence not only is not falling but has risen, with a 4 .7%, compared to 1.8% in Ávila and at least 1% in the rest of the provinces.
The wild boar plan, which is now in the consultation phase in the Junta, dictates extending the hunting period for this animal, from April 1 to the fourth Sunday in February, and “that it can be hunted in any modality of big game and in any part of the preserve”.
Likewise, it establishes that hunters can “use camera traps and supplementary food contributions (previous baiting)”, two tools to “increase the effectiveness of waiting or waiting and hunting and hooks”.
Municipalities in “hunting emergency” due to wild boar
The second part of the wild boar plan will only be applied in certain municipalities that are considered to be in “hunting emergency”, most of them belonging to Salamanca and Ávila, but also to Palencia and León.
“The hunting owners of the affected reserves are obliged to communicate the results of the hunting actions on wild boar every fortnight, as an indicator of the degree of hunting pressure on the affected territories”, indicates the draft of the order.
Likewise, to facilitate the effectiveness of the hooks to the wild boar in these municipal terms, there will be no limits to the maximum number of dogs in the hooks, “unless there are regulatory limitations regarding the conservation of the rest of the biological diversity (for example, in areas oseras)”.
In addition, the owners of livestock farms who prove that they have notified the hunting owner of the existence of health risks due to the presence of wild boar, and provided that the latter has not adopted the appropriate measures, may with this order “subsidiarily request authorization for the execution of population controls.
The risks of the wild boar
The University of León (ULE) and the Instituto de Ganadería de Montaña (IGM, mixed center of the CSIC and the ULE) published on June 8 in the journal “Transboundary and Emerging Diseases” a study that analyzes how the possible interaction between cattle cattle and wild boars in some areas of northern Spain may be contributing to maintaining tuberculosis.
“The higher prevalence of tuberculosis obtained in wild boar is to be expected, as it is a species not subject to an eradication plan, unlike in the case of cattle,” the research indicates.
And he explains: “Transmission between different species is indirect and orally. The bacterium is very resistant, even in extreme conditions, being able to survive in ponds, grass or food for months”.
The authors of the study call for biosecurity measures such as “installing hoppers for the exclusion of wild species or protecting water sources for the exclusive use of domestic livestock” and, at the same time, “maintaining and, where possible, increasing hunting pressure on the wild boar, since their populations have not stopped increasing”. EFE