NIce thread,
Spent some years in Berlin and they have large boar populations. They also have problems with them. Different management strategies are applied in east and west Berlin and the reults were visible. In east Berlin, Lichtenberg at least, boar hunting was allowed. I never saw one in the east, just some signiture foraging holes once! In the west side of the city animal rights activists were very active and, in the absence of management, boar were a relatively major problem. The activists, im certain, thought they were doin the right thing but it didn't work out that way. The boar became tame, people fed them, the bagan to associate people with food, they lost their fear of people and gradually became a nuisance and were sometimes dangerous. A funny example..School children waiting on the bus bagan to feed the boar every morning, after a very short amount of time, they are smart, the boar would turn up before the children and wait. Children wouldnt be allowed onto the bus before they had emptied their lunch boxes. Completely!
I have had some close encounters in the east, all enjoyable but scary.
Guess the point is that proper management planning and implementation is the key.
I would love to see em in Ireland but I dont think we would have the capacity to properly manage them.
