The capital of Italy, which normally attracts lots of tourists, is now attracting wildlife. The wild boars that are appearing on the city’s streets are causing problems and are not welcome.
The animals are lured into Rome by the opportunity to eat trash. Although some of the boars are culled, they still reproduce in Rome’s nature reserves and parks that lie deep in the city.
Boars are seen by the city’s citizens as symbols of urban decay. Recently, they have been consuming trash, disrupting traffic, and encroaching on private properties, and now authorities have been concerned that could spread African Swine Fever.
African Swine Fever is harmless to humans and pets, but deadly to commercially raised pigs, which support a part of the economy. This possibility has concerned several countries such as China to issue import bans on Italian pork, which is very costly.
After carcasses of boars that were infected with swine fever were discovered in northwestern Italy earlier this year, the government created a task force to reduce the estimated several million of the boar population by 50 percent.
“The wild boar is not unlike us: smart, social, lives in groups, super adaptable, omnivorous: It’s an animal for all seasons, and habitats,” says Luigi Boitani, a zoologist at Sapienza University in Rome. The numbers have grown beyond what predators such as wolves could control, Boitani added.
“I don’t see the eradication of the disease as a possibility, unless you bring about a strong reduction of the [boar]population,” says Angelo Ferrari, an expert assigned by the government to address the boar crisis. “The thing is, there’s just too many of them.”
The plan, according to Ferrari, is to let the virus kill of all the boars, contained in a “red zone” and sealed off by fences.
The pork industry is so desperate to stop the situation, since the block from imports has already caused the loss of over 20 million dollars, estimates say. Near the end of May, pig farmers participated in protests to call for government action. Because if the pigs raised for meat are also infected, they will need to be culled too.
Around Rome, there are only thousands of pigs at risk. But at the massive pig farms in the north, even more pigs could be threatened. “Just think of the San Daniele prosciutto and of the prosciutto of Parma,” David Granieri, head of the local chapter of the Coldiretti farmers’ association said, referring to well-known cured meats. “It would get very serious, very quickly.”
The animals are lured into Rome by the opportunity to eat trash. Although some of the boars are culled, they still reproduce in Rome’s nature reserves and parks that lie deep in the city.
Boars are seen by the city’s citizens as symbols of urban decay. Recently, they have been consuming trash, disrupting traffic, and encroaching on private properties, and now authorities have been concerned that could spread African Swine Fever.
African Swine Fever is harmless to humans and pets, but deadly to commercially raised pigs, which support a part of the economy. This possibility has concerned several countries such as China to issue import bans on Italian pork, which is very costly.
After carcasses of boars that were infected with swine fever were discovered in northwestern Italy earlier this year, the government created a task force to reduce the estimated several million of the boar population by 50 percent.
“The wild boar is not unlike us: smart, social, lives in groups, super adaptable, omnivorous: It’s an animal for all seasons, and habitats,” says Luigi Boitani, a zoologist at Sapienza University in Rome. The numbers have grown beyond what predators such as wolves could control, Boitani added.
“I don’t see the eradication of the disease as a possibility, unless you bring about a strong reduction of the [boar]population,” says Angelo Ferrari, an expert assigned by the government to address the boar crisis. “The thing is, there’s just too many of them.”
The plan, according to Ferrari, is to let the virus kill of all the boars, contained in a “red zone” and sealed off by fences.
The pork industry is so desperate to stop the situation, since the block from imports has already caused the loss of over 20 million dollars, estimates say. Near the end of May, pig farmers participated in protests to call for government action. Because if the pigs raised for meat are also infected, they will need to be culled too.
Around Rome, there are only thousands of pigs at risk. But at the massive pig farms in the north, even more pigs could be threatened. “Just think of the San Daniele prosciutto and of the prosciutto of Parma,” David Granieri, head of the local chapter of the Coldiretti farmers’ association said, referring to well-known cured meats. “It would get very serious, very quickly.”
