Rome accused of cruelty over plan to cull 50,000 boar

ITALIAN authorities have been accused of cruelty after announcing a plan to cull 50,000 wild boar in Rome and the surrounding area.

In Italy, wild boar not only roam the countryside but also encroach on towns and cities, feeding off uncollected rubbish, causing road accidents and occasionally attacking people.

The region of Lazio, which includes Rome, has approved a plan to kill 50,000 of the boar, double the number that were culled last year.

Female boar will be singled out – they can give birth up to twice a year, each time having as many as 10 piglets.

A small army of hunters will be deployed across Lazio during the next hunting season, with hotspots including the capital and the towns of Rieti and Viterbo.

The cull will aim to combat the “species’ penetration of urban environments”, the region’s management plan said.

Wild boar cause millions of euros’ worth of damage by eating crops and provoked a recent outbreak of African swine fever in Lazio, which they can pass onto domestic pigs.

Coldiretti, a national farmers’ organisation which estimates that the country’s boar population now exceeds two million, warned that if swine fever spread further among domestic pigs, the effects would be “catastrophic”.

The cull was criticised by some animal welfare organisations. The International Organisation for Protection of Animals said: “This is a myopic and execrable measure which favours hunting and blood over any ethical solution.”

Daniele Diaco, a politician with the Five Star Movement and vice-president of the region’s environmental committee, said the cull was “a plan of unprecedented cruelty”.

Fioravante Serrani, a farming consultant and expert on boar, said the most effective way of preventing them from frequenting urban areas was to “eliminate the attraction of organic rubbish that is abandoned in the streets”.