Wild boar wreak havoc in Pego
WILD boar are still on the rampage in the northern Marina Alta, causing damage to crops.
One landowner in Pego says his entire three acres were ravaged overnight.
Carlos Sendra found his allotment in tatters on Saturday morning, despite high chainlink fences surrounding it to protect it from wildlife.
“They just swam through the canal and got in that way,” he said.
“This year we’d planted 15,000 onions, and at most we’ll be able to save 4,000 of them.
“We won’t earn enough from selling them to cover the cost of fertiliser.”
His plot, close to the rice fields in the Racó de Pego area of the Marjal, appeared to be fortress-like, and although he had a scarecrow set up for good measure, this did not frighten the hogs either.
In the 10 years Carlos has been working the allotment which he inherited from his father, ‘there have always been wild boar’, but nothing like the population glut of the last year or so.
Until recently, the animals would leave many types of crop – such as pumpkins and onions – untouched, as they ‘didn't like them’, but nowadays ‘they'll eat anything’. Carlos revealed.
One way of keeping them off farmland is to ‘scatter perfume all over it’.
“You have to use different ones constantly, because if they get used to the smell, it stops bothering them,” Carlos explained. “But these days, even perfume isn’t deterring them.”
Wild boar tend to live in remote areas, but when vegetation in the mountains is sparse, they move downhill in search of food, feasting on farm crops and even gardens in residential areas.