In mid-November, Kyoto, Japan, issued a "call to action": encourage hunters to go into the mountains to legally kill wild boars, and allow the use of "high-tech" equipment to assist in hunting. In the view of potatoes, there may be unspeakable "bitterness" behind Japan's large-scale killing of wild boars.
Wild boar in Japan is locally inundated, and "mutated" wild boar has appeared in individual areas
In the 2019 Lunar Year of the Pig, several departments of Japan's Ministry of the Environment conducted a systematic monitoring of wild boar in the country, and the statistics surprised them: the number of wild boars in Japan was only 300,000 in 1990, and by 2016 it had climbed to 890,000, and in 2019 it exceeded 900,000.
With the reproductive rate of two litters a year and 4-12 cubs per litter, experts predict that the number of wild boars in Japan will most likely exceed 120,000 in 2023. Strangely, according to Japanese media reports, the number of wild boars killed in Japan in 2016 was about 350,000, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and other departments plan to control the number of wild boars to less than 500,000 by 2023. It is undeniable that Japan is the same as the United States in terms of the number of wild boars.
Wild boar was originally a symbol of good luck in Japan, meaning no disease and no disaster, and a peaceful harvest, but now it has choked Japan enough and caused trouble everywhere.
1. In 2017, a 1-meter-long wild boar broke into the lobby of the Westin Miyako Hotel in Kyoto, hit a 68-year-old staff member, took another bite, and then flew away. In February 2020, a 55-year-old man in Nagasaki City was fishing in a rock farm in Koe Town when he was suddenly attacked by a wild boar swimming from the sea, biting the man's arm and back, and finally the man tried his best to suppress the wild boar, soaking the boar's head in the sea and drowning.
2. The Japanese wild boar is also a "freak" and always likes to wander around the city. A Japanese driver's dashcam captured a video of a wild boar standing on the side of the road "stunned", quickly running and crashing into an oncoming car, killing the wild boar on the spot.
Wild boars frequently roam parks, temples, rivers, occasionally attacking tourists, sometimes running after tourists' butts, sometimes biting tourists' hands and feet, sometimes grabbing food in tourists' hands and running. A tourist was once "overturned" by a wild boar of more than 200 pounds while visiting a temple in Kyoto, and the local tourism department took out a large amount of compensation to "quell the matter".
3. In addition to tossing the Japanese people, wild boars are most interested in Japanese crops. In 2018, the economic value of vegetables, fruits, and other crops destroyed by wild boars amounted to 73 million yen, and this was only the amount of damage in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, which lost about 4.7 billion yen in Japan. Japanese insurance companies have formulated insurance policies specifically for wild boar-infested areas, which is to put it bluntly, raising premiums and making local growers angry to the point of "gnashing their teeth", but helpless.
Worse than the losses, Japan's biggest headache is the 100,000 "mutant wild boars" active in Fukushima. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck Japan, triggering a massive tsunami that flooded cooling water pumps and emergency diesel generator sets in the basement of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and eventually led to a nuclear leak.
About 90 trillion Becquerel (Bq) uranium and radioactive elements such as cadmium-137 leaked in the nuclear reactor, and a large part of it spread tens of kilometers around with the water and atmosphere. The Japanese government evacuated 500,000 people and a small number of valuables, abandoned a large number of cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks and geese and other livestock, and those wild animals that did not have time to hide could only "fend for themselves".
Before the Fukushima accident, there were about 3,000 wild boars, which were known for their firm meat and rich flavor, and were once a delicacy for local guests. After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the remaining domestic pigs and wild boars frantically mate and breed, and gradually formed a new breed, which is very different from the original wild boar.
Previously, wild boars used to move in groups at night, but after the Fukushima accident, wild boars liked to be alone and dared to run around during the day. A large number of gray-white spots appear all over the boar, giving it an unhealthy feeling. Researchers have detected radioactive substances in all new breeds of wild boar, including cesium-137 levels more than 300 times that of normal wild boars!
The reproductive efficiency of the new breed of wild boar seems to have become higher. The number of wild boars in Fukushima increased from 38,000 in 2015 to 62,000 three years later in 2018, and the latest data for 2022 shows that the number of wild boars exceeds 100,000, including giant wild boars weighing more than 200 kilograms and having a pair of fangs of more than 10 centimeters. Some experts say that these new species of wild boars that have been exposed to nuclear radiation are spreading around Fukushima, and may become a greater hidden danger.
In order to kill wild boars, Japan uses power grids and drones
In Japan, there is also a law for wild animals, the "Law on the Protection and Management of Birds and Beasts and the Rationalization of Hunting", which stipulates that no one can kill wild animals, including wild boars, at will, so the consent or authorization of the local government must be obtained before killing wild boars.
The difference is that the mainland usually only allows the use of firearms to kill wild boars, but Japan is an "exhaustive means", whether you have a power grid, a crossbow, even a potion.
Therefore, it is often seen that almost all places near farmland at the foot of the mountain have erected microgrids or iron fences, and some iron fences are hung with "iron barbed strips", which are specially used to prevent wild boars. Next to the farmland, there may be a robot wolf with white fangs and gray hair, 65 cm long and 50 cm high, which immediately howls wolves, machine gun fire, and human voices when it detects a wild boar, which is a tool that farmers pay for to drive away wild boars.
In order to kill wild boars, Japan has introduced an incentive policy, stipulating that each wild boar killed is 3,000 yen at the county level and 5,000 yen at the municipal level, a total of about 1,000 yuan.
Let's talk about Kyoto's new new pig hunting technology launched in November. In addition to hunting rifles, hunting dogs and other equipment, hunting drones are also used this time, and the drones are equipped with a wild boar identification system, which immediately sends the location of the wild boar to the hunter once it is found that the wild boar running drone is immediately sent; The drone is equipped with a megaphone, and by playing the sound of hunting dogs, wild boars are driven into preset traps, and finally they are all captured.
Write on the back
From a technical point of view, the wild boar flood is not terrible, and it can be controlled by hunting, but the radioactive elements hidden in Fukushima, Japan, are the hidden dangers, in addition to the mutated wild boar, what other mutated animals are there is a matter for Japan to investigate.
Original: Potatoes