Sweden, 40 years with wild boars. Pros and Cons on the return of a highly reproductive

ungulate

P-A Åhlén, Swedish Association For Hunting and Wildlife Management

(Svenska Jägareförbundet)

Raccoon Dog Project

P-A Åhlén, Swedish Association For Hunting and Wildlife Management(Svenska Jägareförbundet)

Rear endFront

Up

Down

Wild Boar (Sus scrofa)

• Annual home range 800-2000ha (>10 000ha)

• High reproduction• High mortality from hunting (94% hunting,

4% traffic, 2% diseases and drowning) • 70% of the annual food is related to

hunters feeding• Low dispersal abillity (4 km for sows and

16 km for males)

Native and introduced range

http://www.untamedscience.com/biodiversity/wild-boar/

History in Sweden

• Eradicated ≈ 1000, 1600, 1750, 1950• Last introduction1970-ish• Eradication…• Wild Boar law 1980

•New law 1988

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Population growth 28%/yearDoubble numbers every 3 year (2,85)

Speed 5 km / year (Truvé 2004)

Today 25% of possible area

30 more years of dispersal to populate possible areas

400 000 – 500 000 / year

PROGNOSIS DISPERSAL

Limiting factors

50 cm

Limiting factors

Limiting factors

Limiting factors / ASF

Limiting factors / Management

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade

Detect presence - EWS

EWS-Wild Boar

• 1 camera / 2000ha• 100 000ha → 50 cams• Food, sex, territory and tar

Sex and territory

Food

MMS-kameror

Management

• Baits and MMS-cams• Dogs and Hounds• Cars, GPS

•1000 wildlife managers•50 countries

INVASIVE SPECIES

• Quickly escalating development on tools and methods for control and eradication of invasive species

• Development of species specific immunocontrareceptive baits

• NZ predict development of tools for continental eradications within 5‐10 years

• Extreme conservation gains to come

Future Game Management?• Challenge recreational hunters role in game management• If the hunters cannot control game populations down to levels set by the 

society, new methods will replace them

• Almost total consensus on recreational hunters inability to stabilize and reduce game populations

• Few believed us when we claimed that ungulate populations were regulated with recreational hunters in the Nordic countries

• Popular game species has the most secured conservation status

• Control of ungulate populations is a globally growing research branch

• Massive discontent with recreational hunters ability  to reduce game populations

• Ban for wild boar hunting in some US states

• Poison, professional hunters, helicopters, snares, corral traps, electrocution devices with solar panels that recharge for next boar and so on

Lessons from Sweden

• Farmers with no hunting rights

• Commercial hunting• High lease cost

-Feeding -Protection of sows

Effekten av villsvinets (Sus scrofa) populasjonsvekst i Sverige på populasjonene av rødrev (Vulpes vulpes), grevling (Meles meles) og storfugl (Tetrao urogallus)Bjørnrud 2013

Thank you!