Jimu news reporter Zeng Lingke Liu Qin
Recently, wild boars in many parts of the country have frequently appeared. Villagers in Anhui, Sichuan, Shaanxi and other places reported that wild boars went down the mountain in groups to eat crops, and after eating crops, they ate poultry. But in dealing with wild boars, effective ways of traveling have not yet been explored.
In order to protect crops, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, once set up electric fences in farmland, and Luoyigou Village in Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province, also tried to drive wild boars by means of lanterns and rock music. Tongjiang County, Bazhong City, Sichuan Province, plans to kill 750 wild boars by the end of 2021. The task is daunting due to the professionalism of personnel and the limitation of the number of firearms.
In just over two decades, why did the wild boar that had originally "disappeared" flood in many places? Experts said that this is a manifestation of the improvement of the ecological environment. It is advisable to control the number of wild boar populations by appropriate hunting, but the environmental capacity should be assessed before killing, and the number and age structure of wild boars should be clarified.
Wild boars are frequently found in many places
On the afternoon of November 18, Li Yajun (pseudonym), a hunter in Xiaojiafang Town, Shaowu City, Fujian Province, had just finished lunch and left the house when he was surrounded by dozens of families in the village.
The villagers either had their crops eaten by wild boars or their family's ducks were eaten by wild boars. They all hoped that Li Yajun would come to the village quickly to hunt wild boars.
Poultry injured by wild boars in Luoyigou Village, Sichuan
Li Yajun is 57 years old this year and has been hunting for more than 40 years. He could clearly feel that there had been more wild boars near the village in the past two years. In the past, wild boars only destroyed the crops of a few families, but now they are eaten by the whole village. The crops were almost finished, and the wild boars ate poultry again.
Li Yajun's village is not alone. Over the past few days, wild boars from all over the world have appeared frequently in the news. People's Network message board can also see the complaints of the masses on the wild boar in many parts of the country, and these messages are mainly concentrated in anhui, Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi and other central provinces. In September alone, there were 13 complaints.
Villagers on the city message board leave messages
A farmer in Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, said: "Almost every family in the village has been arched by wild boars, arched to continue planting, planting to continue arching, hoping that the government will come forward to help solve the problem." ”
A farmer in Haiyuan County, Ningxia, left a message saying: "There are too many wild boars on Nanhua Mountain in Haiyuan County, and every night in groups (at least once I see more than 20 of them) come to the farmland to eat my corn, not only eat but also trample, the loss is large, we currently only rely on people to guard in the field at night, but you guard this side, wild boars eat on the other side, does the government have any good way?" ”
A villager in Hongfa Village, Changling Township, Jinzhai County, Anhui Province, originally planted nearly 3 acres of tianma, and was expected to earn about 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, but when it was close to a bumper harvest, it was eaten by wild boar herds.
Respond to the frequent appearance of wild boar tricks
Although the villagers are anxiously hoping that Li Yajun can start hunting quickly, in Li Yajun's view, the process is urgent.
"You must first apply to the county forestry bureau and the public security bureau for approval of arrest permits and gun licenses, and then collect the gun from the police station." My arrest warrant just expired in October this year and is now being re-issued. However, the police officers in charge of the police station who were in charge of the guns were not in the village recently. I'll have to wait for him to come back and get the gun. "Li Yajun pays special attention to the compliance process of hunting wild boars. He also told jimu news reporters that the county forestry department has calculated that 500 wild boars can be killed this year, and the task assigned to Xiaojiafang Town is 30.
Li Yajun became the "red man" in the village because it was not easy for ordinary villagers to deal with wild boar, and because of their status as wild animals, ordinary people could not hunt or injure it. The driving methods such as noise and strong light exposure are just "small fights" for wild boars.
Yang Yong, secretary of Luoyigou Village in Qingchuan County, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province, has dealt with wild boars for many years. Because it is close to the Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve, There are wild boars in Luoyigou Village all year round.
Yang Yong remembers that when he was a child, there were wild boars infested the village, and the villagers used shotguns to deal with them, and the powerful hunters could earn hundreds of yuan of income every year. In 1978, the Tangjiahe River Conservation Area was established and a total ban on the hunting of wild animals began. "At first, the villagers still beat it secretly, but then the wild boar was listed as a protected animal, and hunting and killing was illegal, and no one dared to beat the wild boar anymore." Yang Yong said.
Yang Yong has been the village secretary for more than 10 years. He also felt that in recent years, the number of wild boars has increased, and the number of wild boars near Luoyigou Village should be counted in hundreds. In the past 10 years, Yang Yong and the villagers have thought of many ways to deal with it. In the crop field, electric lights, lanterns, firecrackers, and even bought a stereo to play rock music all night in the crop field. "But after trying each method for more than 10 days, the wild boar slowly adapted." Yang Yong said that in the end, he could only rely on people to guard.
Various localities should explore compensation systems
In areas where wildlife is frequent, compensation systems have been explored.
Because it is close to the reserve, in addition to wild boars, Luoyigou Village also faces the destruction of crops by other wild animals. To this end, the Tangjiahe Conservation Area conducted a background survey of man-beast conflict in 2017. In April 2018, the "Measures for the Management of Wild Animal Accidents in Luoyigou Village of Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province (Trial Implementation)" was also formed.
After the end of the survey, starting in 2019, the collective contributions of the Tangjiahe Conservation Area and The Luoyigou Village combined with some social donations jointly formed a pool of compensation funds. After the crop land is destroyed, the villagers can get compensation as long as they protect the site and declare truthfully.
A cornfield destroyed by wild boars in Luoyigou Village, Sichuan Province
"However, at present, the source of funds for annual compensation is unstable, and the compensation standard is also changing." It may be possible to earn 1,000 yuan per mu of land, but the compensation is only 200-300 yuan. We are still considering fencing the crops near the edge of the forest. Yang Yong said.
However, in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, the fence has failed for wild boars.
Li Zhongyuan, director of the Wildlife Protection Station in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan Province, told Jimu News that in recent years, due to the gradual improvement of the law and the impact of policies such as the need for civilian firearms to be confiscated, the number of wild boars has begun to increase significantly, and the life cycle of wild boars can reach 20 years, and a female wild boar produces two litters of piglets a year, each litter of 10. "We have tried to set up an electric fence around the farmer's crop field to intercept the wild boar, and the effect is still OK for a short time, but the wild boar will arch the soil, and over time it will arch under the fence into the crop field." Lieutenant Li said.
Li Zhongyuan said that in Yunnan, the local government is insured every year, and wild boars, like elephants and other wild animals, if they destroy the farmers' crop land, the insurance company will compensate the farmers according to the compensation standards for wild animal accidents. In the face of the current flooding of wild boars in many parts of the country, various provinces are also beginning to introduce different policies and measures, and he believes that there is no better way to deal with them than to control the overall number of wild boars through artificial killing.
Difficult hunting missions
However, in the face of the sudden large number of wild boars, where the human, material and financial resources for hunting came from became a new problem.
In 2021, Tongjiang County, Bazhong City, Sichuan Province, preliminarily surveyed more than 20,000 wild boars in the county, and the county was also identified by the Sichuan Forestry and Grassland Bureau as one of the pilot counties for the prevention and control of wild boar hazards. Since then, Tongjiang County has issued the "Tongjiang County Wild Boar Hazard Prevention and Control Pilot Work Plan". According to the plan, according to the standard that the number of wild boars per square kilometer should not exceed 2, 750 wild boars should be killed by the end of 2021.
To this end, Tongjiang County invited the only professional team in Sichuan Province with a gun license - the hunting team of the Jiangyou Hunting and Rescue Center. However, according to Li Bin, director of the Wildlife Conservation Center of the Forestry Bureau of Tongjiang County, judging from the current situation of only one team killing wild boars, the hunting task of 750 animals this year is difficult to complete. At the same time, there are also 6 farmer hunting teams in Tongjiang County applying for registration with the civil affairs department. But applying for guns is also a problem "The state is very strict about gun management, and it is a long process to apply for guns. Li Bin said.
Li Yajun of Fujian faces the same dilemma. Li Yajun told the Jimu News reporter that the wild boar lays out at night, and when hunting, he usually goes out at 8 o'clock at night, drives at a speed of 40 to 50 yards on the village road, observes the whereabouts of the wild boar, and until the wild boar returns to the mountain at 6 o'clock in the morning, he will finish his work and go home. How many wild boars can you hunt in one night? Li Yajun said it depends on the situation. But for the target of killing 30 wild boars in the town this year, Li Yajun laughed and said that it would definitely not be complete. Li Yajun's hunting team once had 8 members, but as they got older, the team members left one after another, and now only 57-year-old Li Yajun and another member are left.
The ecological environment is a good performance
The Jimu News reporter inquired that in the "List of Beneficial Terrestrial Wild Animals Protected by the State or of Important Economic and Scientific Research Value" issued and implemented by the former State Forestry Administration on August 1, 2000, the wild boar in the order even-hoofed was included in the list of protected wild animals for the first time, and the purpose of protection was to maintain ecological balance and protect species diversity.
Sun Quanhui, a doctor of zoology at the China Representative Office of the World Animal Protection Association, told the Polar News reporter that a well-functioning ecosystem provides conditions for many species to survive and reproduce, and in recent years, the forest ecological status in some areas has been continuously restored and improved, which has also promoted the growth of the natural population of wild boars. Wild boars are highly reproducible and adaptable, breeding once or twice a year and producing about 10 cubs at a time. In the case of abundant food and lack of natural enemies, the survival rate of the cubs is relatively high. However, the number of natural enemies of wild boars such as tigers, leopards, wolves, bears, etc. has dropped significantly or even become locally extinct. With the continuous increase of national wildlife protection, the phenomenon of ecological imbalance in some areas has been increasing. In just over two decades, wild boars have gone from "disappearing" in China in the 1980s and 1990s to "flooding" now.
Wild boars are omnivores and their populations grow rapidly in the absence of natural predators and adequate food. However, wild boars are also indispensable species in the ecological chain. They are not only the main prey of predators such as tigers, leopards, wolves, jackals, etc., but also helpers in pollination and seed transmission of many plants. In addition, when looking for food, wild boars like to use their noses to arch the soil, dig out the roots and soil animals under the ground, to a certain extent, prevent the soil under the forest from compacting; some trees are broken by it, and solve the problem that the plants are too dense and the sunlight cannot illuminate the ground; the dead branches and leaves are covered by the soil that is turned over in the process of arching the soil, which reduces the speed of microbial decomposition, which is conducive to the enrichment of soil humus and the improvement of soil structure, helping to improve soil quality; and some of the food hidden in the ground by rats is eaten by wild boars This in turn controls the occurrence of forest rat infestation to a certain extent.
As a forest native of the wild boar, the relationship with the forest is very close, in the ecological chain occupies an important position, the increase in the number of wild boar, is a regional ecological environment of the performance of good, but also an important indicator of biological chain restoration.
Sun Quanhui pointed out that in a healthy and complete ecosystem, wild boars are an indispensable link in the food chain, and their natural populations will also be regulated by predators such as tigers, leopards, jackals, and wolves, thus maintaining a relatively stable level. Once the natural enemies of wild boars disappear or are insufficient, the phenomenon of rapid growth and local flooding of natural populations of wild boars will occur.
The excessive growth of wild boar populations will not only upset the balance of local ecosystems, but also adversely affect the production and life of local residents. From a population management perspective, artificial interventions, such as hunting some individuals, are often considered to reduce their population density and natural growth rate in the wild. However, manual intervention is often a last resort, and the effect is difficult to last. In the long run, only by restoring the integrity of ecosystems and food chains can we do so once and for all. However, the introduction of natural enemies of wild boars will inevitably bring new problems, which must be thoroughly studied and comprehensively evaluated before implementation.
Scientifically investigate first and then hunt
Another expert who has been engaged in wildlife protection for many years reminded Jimu News that the artificial introduction of natural enemies may bring more uncontrollable factors. For example, Australia was able to introduce foxes in response to a rabbit flood, but eventually created a fox flood. Therefore, artificial control of the number of wild boar populations is currently desirable. But how many wild boars should survive in an area and how many wild boars should be killed should be scientifically calculated.
He believes that the assessment method of "the number of wild boars per square kilometer should not exceed two per square kilometer" in Sichuan Tongjiang may be too extensive.
"The first is a thorough investigation, how many wild boars there are in this area, the bottom number is very important, is the basis of all future plans." Secondly, it is the population results of wild boars, how many old, how many young adults, how many young wild boars. If you hunt blindly, such as too many young and middle-aged wild boars, you may be gone the next year. Third, calculate the environmental capacity, how many wild boars the area can carry. Finally, it is possible to draw conclusions about how many wild boars should be killed and what age to kill. The expert said. Solve the scientific problem first, and then the human, financial and material problems of hunting wild boars. ”
When asked what ordinary villagers can do when they are infested with wild boars. The expert admitted: "Villagers have no good way to deal with it, and the general way does not work." Use traps or dig trenches to let the wild boar fall into it, and the wild boar will not be able to get injured. You can only protect the scene, take pictures, and then report to the local authorities to see if you can apply for compensation. ”
Source: Jimu News