Flocks of wild boars go down the mountain and enter the village, which is rare in previous years.
As the ecological environment continues to improve, wild animal populations are gradually expanding. For wild boars that have no natural enemies, they have become one of the wild animals at the top of the food chain.
In a mountainous area in a central province, when the rice began to head, the 69-year-old Yang slept on the ground and stayed there for 20 days.
Because of poor sleep and too many mosquitoes, Lao Yang couldn't hold on, so he bought animal traps from the Internet and walked them around the rice fields. Eventually, he caught three wild boars and sold them cheaply to make up for the loss.
"I know it's illegal to catch wild boars, but there is no way." On November 19, Lao Yang told The Paper that all his income was to manage ten acres of land for his family.
Among them, three acres of rice fields have been harmed by wild boars in the past three years because they are close to the foot of the mountain.
Villagers in many mountainous areas in China are facing the same distress as Lao Yang.
They planted scarecrows in the ground, honked their horns, set off firecrackers, got up at night to drive them away, and even slept on the ground, with mediocre results.
Incidents of wild boar wounding occurred frequently in many places.
In order to protect people’s property, hunting teams have been set up in Sichuan, Anhui and other places to control the number of wild boars.
According to a notice issued by the State Forestry and Grassland Administration in May this year, 14 provinces across the country are carrying out comprehensive pilot projects for the prevention and control of wild boar hazards.
Some wildlife experts pointed out that how humans and wild boars and even wild animals should get along has become an important scientific and social management issue, and it also requires more human thinking and wisdom.
Fully fed wild boar sleeping in the chicken pen
On November 19, 81-year-old Li Jianchun, a mountain resident from Xinyang City, Henan Province, told The Paper that in the past three years, there have been more and more wild boars.
"Wild boars have two litters a year, we have no natural enemies, and they develop very fast." He said.
The Paper was walking through the fields in the mountain village where Li Jianchun was located, and saw many fresh footprints and arch marks of wild boars.
Many rice fields have bamboo poles with clothes or plastic inserted.
In an already harvested sweet potato field, there is a large patch of grass ash.
To prevent wild boars, the villagers, when the sweet potatoes are about to mature, the sawdust ignited on the ground is covered with wet grass to form thick smoke to drive away the wild boars.
However, despite lighting such a pile of smoke every night, the sweet potato field was ruined by wild boars.
According to villagers in Sichuan, Anhui, Henan and other places, wild boars come down the mountain when crops such as corn, peanuts, and sweet potatoes are about to mature.
To drive away wild boars, the villagers set off horns and firecrackers, and some installed electric lights in the ground, but the wild boars soon ceased to be afraid.
Other villagers were summoned by the police station for setting off firecrackers to scare wild boars because the firecrackers were banned in the local area.
"I used to see one and two. Nowadays, big pigs often bring a group of little pigs, and they are not afraid of people." Li Jianchun said, when the dog barked at night, he would get up and yell to drive away the wild boar.
But the peanuts and sweet potatoes planted at the door of the house this year are still endangered.
"As the saying goes, one pig, two bears and three tigers. The wild boar may not eat much, but even stepping on the arch is very destructive."
Li Jianchun does not plan to plant the rice field far away from his home next year.
Shao Xianyu, a mountain resident from Xiaonanjing Village, Meishan Town, Jinzhai County, Anhui Province, has been raising chickens for three years. The chicken farm is at the foot of the hill.
In July of this year, wild boars repeatedly opened the barbed wire fence of the chicken shed, got in to eat feed, and killed hundreds of chickens.
"It seldom eats chickens that are bitten, and it only eats offal." Shao Xianyu said that most wild boars come at night, but on two occasions, when he went to feed the chickens during the day, he found a full wild boar lying in the chicken shed. When he was asleep, he opened the barbed wire and ran away.
The dog in the chicken farm was once bitten by a wild boar and left scars on its hind legs.
This situation is getting worse every year.
According to Li Kaicheng, a mountain resident of Jinzhai County, his family lives in the mountains. In previous years, there were a lot of wild boars in the mountains, but they rarely visited the villagers’ residential areas.
Since last year, there may be too many wild boars, there is not enough food in the mountains and forests, and I am not afraid of dogs, so I often come here.
His chickens and ducks were eaten and dozens of them were killed. The sweet potatoes they planted were also destroyed.
Although it is now in winter, there are still seven or eight wild boars moving around his home, eating winter bamboo shoots and kudzu roots on the mountain, "sometimes, they move in front of you at your door."
Li Kaicheng said that there are wild boar activities near every house in the surrounding villagers, and everyone has nothing to do.
"I was forced to catch wild boars." Lao Yang, a mountain resident in a province in central China, introduced that he manages ten acres of land for his family and earns several thousand yuan a year in net income.
Last year, the output of the three-mu rice field at the foot of the mountain was reduced by one-third due to wild boars, which made him feel distressed. "The ruined ones are enough for my annual ration."
In the past few years, Lao Yang slept on the ground and knocked on the basin to scare the wild boars every time the rice was headed.
Because there were too many mosquitoes, after 20 days, Lao Yang, who couldn't help his body, bought 5 sets of floor coverings from the Internet and placed them around the rice fields.
Later, Lao Yang caught two big and one small three wild boars, the big one was more than two hundred catties and the small one was fifty to sixty catties.
He also caught pig badgers, hedgehogs, and hares.
To make up for the loss, Lao Yang sold the wild boar for two to three thousand yuan.
Public reports show that wild boar injuries have occurred frequently in recent years, and it is not uncommon for people to be sentenced for illegal hunting of wild boars and to electrocute people from power grids.
Lao Yang said bluntly that he was afraid of being caught, but "I can't just watch the hard-grown rice destroyed."
No wild boar bullets will never load
In the message board of the leaders of People's Daily Online, in September this year alone, there were netizens in Shexian County of Anhui, Wenxian County, Qingshui County, Zhouqu County of Gansu, Haiyuan County of Ningxia, Mingguang City of Anhui, Mianchi County of Henan, and Mudanjiang City of Heilongjiang. Disaster problem.
In the official response, Shexian stated that Huangtian Township will speed up the formation of hunting teams and arrange for wild boar hunting in an organized and planned manner.
Mianchi County stated that Yinghao Town would organize hunting teams to kill them appropriately.
Sichuan, Anhui and other places have previously set up hunting teams to regulate the number of wild boars.
On November 21st, Pu Guangming, deputy director of the Tianma National Nature Reserve Administration of Jinzhai, Anhui, told The Paper that in 2006, Jinzhai County set up a hunting team in order to control the number of wild boars due to strong reactions from the masses.
Up to now, 5 wild boar hunting operations have been carried out.
In the past few years, hunting was suspended due to African swine fever.
In the past, the wild boars caught were at the disposal of the hunting team.
In 2020, wild boars are listed as banned for consumption. The wild boars hunted this year will be purchased by the local township people's government at 10 yuan/jin, and will be harmlessly treated in accordance with the requirements of the regulations.
The acquisition funds shall be uniformly paid by the county finance after verification and approval, as labor subsidies for hunting team members.
According to Pu Guangming, the surge in wild boars is mainly due to increased protection in recent years, restoration of the ecological environment, the disappearance of wild boar's natural enemies such as jackals, tigers and leopards, the relocation of the masses and the strong reproductive capacity of wild boars.
Pu Guangming said that in terms of wildlife protection, local and scientific research institutions have been cooperating all the year round. Every year, special wild boar surveys are carried out across the county. Through infrared camera monitoring and peacetime surveys, it is estimated that there are about 4,000 wild boars in the county.
This year, the Forestry Department of Jinzhai County applied to hunt 400 (10%) wild boars, and the first batch of 200 was approved by the province.
Pu Guangfa emphasized that hunting is strictly prohibited in the reserve, hunting teams must hunt wild boars in the specified areas, and hunting of other animals is strictly prohibited.
The explanation is that guns must be used to hunt wild boars, and other wild animals will be harmed due to the use of clamps and covers.
Wang Jia, the leader of the hunting team in Jinzhai County, is now 53 years old.
He introduced that the team currently has 16 players, divided into four groups.
If you want to join the hunting team, you must be a farmer who is 25 to 60 years old and has hunting and gun-holding experience in the hunting zone designated by the provincial government.
Public officials and urban residents are not allowed to join, and the participating personnel must not have bad deeds; the team members must also undergo medical examinations, apply for approval at various levels, apply for hunting licenses and gun licenses, and conduct training, internships and inspections; not only inspect the technology, but also inspect the team members. Whether the personality is stable, whether there is a certain physical strength, a certain dedication, etc.
According to Wang Jiaru, guns are kept by the police station. Every time they are hunted, they are taken on the same day and returned on the same day.
Every time you hunt, you must not be less than two people. The bullets are kept separately. Only when you see a wild boar can you load it, and you can only shoot if it is a wild boar.
"Wild boars are hard to fight and very hard. It's not as easy as you think. You have to walk an average of 20 miles of mountain roads each time." Wang Jiaru told The Paper that the weather has been relatively dry recently and it is difficult for hunting dogs to track the smell, and the leaves have not fallen off. The line of sight is not very good.
Moreover, the hunting team has not hunted wild boars for three or four years, and the team members and the hunting dogs have an adaptation stage. They have to adapt to the weather, adapt to the environment, and adapt to the intensity.
Hunting started on November 15 this year, and as of November 22, a total of 24 wild boars have been captured.
Wang Jiaru introduced that in hunting wild boars, tracking is very important, mainly relying on the hunting dogs to smell the smell and the team members to check the traces.
"Extremely fierce dogs, if they rush up and bite them, (this kind of hounds) are easy to die; smart hounds will circle around the wild boar. After the dog surrounds the wild boar, the team members must charge and run faster. Arrived in three to five minutes, otherwise the wild boar will run away."
The team members usually shoot at a distance of 20 meters from the wild boar. The hunting team has never had a security incident such as being injured by a wild boar.
Wang Jiaru said that the wild boars hunted in the past were handled by the hunters themselves, and now they are handed over to the government for harmless treatment. The government subsidies 10 yuan per catty for the pigs, and their income has declined, but they are still "a little better than doing farm work."
Expert: Intervention and control are also a kind of protection
According to documents obtained by The Paper, on May 24 this year, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration issued a notice stating: In order to effectively prevent and control the hazards of wild boar, scientifically handle the relationship between protecting wild animals and safeguarding the vital interests of the people. On the basis of the comprehensive pilot projects for the prevention and control of wild boar hazards in six provinces including Shanxi, eight provinces including Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Ningxia were added to conduct comprehensive pilot work for the prevention and control of wild boar hazards.
The notice requires all localities to formulate comprehensive pilot programs in terms of investigation, population control, active prevention, detection and early warning, compensation measures, management training, and public opinion guidance.
It also requires all localities to take the initiative to consult the wild boar prevention and control expert group units of the bureau (the Institute of Wildlife of Beijing Forestry University, the Institute of Natural Reserves of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, etc.), accept their technical guidance, carry out professional skills training for hunters, and explore hunting. The end of the catch and the disposal of the prey, etc.
People familiar with the matter told The Paper that the first batch of notices from the pilot provinces was also issued by the State Forestry and Grassland Administration earlier this year.
People who are concerned about the prevention and control of wild boars say that because hunting wild boars involves gun management, some places are more cautious.
Pu Guangming told The Paper that Jinzhai County has applied to Anhui Province to become a pilot county.
On his desk, there is a letter of introduction from the foreign forestry department requesting to learn from the experience.
"Call for more consultation." Pu Guangming said.
"The proliferation of wild boars shows that the number of wild animals in our country is gradually increasing, which is a good thing." On November 21, Zhang Jinshuo, deputy curator of the National Zoological Museum, told The Paper that wild animals need to be managed, because from the current ecosystem, there are some The food chain link is missing.
Zhang Jinshuo said that for scientific management, we need to figure out the basic number, population, age structure, and reproduction cycle of wild animals, and have enough research data.
At present, there are very few domestic wild boar research experts, and there is insufficient research on the current status of wild boars and ecological problems, which does not meet the needs of ecological civilization construction.
If there are more wild boars in a certain area, how much damage will it do to the local area?
To what extent can the masses bear it?
It is also an issue worthy of attention.
Zhang Jinshuo explained that people and animals should live in harmony. For example, in Singapore, wild boars are often seen in the suburbs and even urban areas, and they will not attack people.
"We need to re-establish the trust between humans and wild animals, and give them a certain amount of time and space." Zhang Jinshuo, for example, said that in Yunnan Province, ecological compensation was done many years ago. Therefore, the masses are more accepting of elephants. Know that elephants are much more destructive than wild boars.
"So, for wild animals, it also depends on how much you accept it. In addition, we manage wild animals. Many scientific management methods should be intervened by professionals to formulate some measures and emergency plans, including publicizing how to prevent and control safety. , To avoid panic. Including methods such as anaesthetizing and transferring wild boars."
Public reports show that many places have formulated the "Measures for Compensation for Personal Injury and Property Loss Caused by Terrestrial Wild Animals", and some places are implementing insurance against harm caused by wild animals.
Qi Xinzhang, deputy director of Xining Zoo, believes that some localities control the number of wild boars and convey a rational view that protecting wild animals is not purely for protection, it should be a kind of dynamic control to achieve the goal of balance.
Intervention and control are also a kind of protection. In the past, it was not easy for everyone to accept this concept.
Now, it is the transition from perceptual to rational.
In response to the concern of some animal protection scholars about "reversing", Qi Xinzhang said that considering the problem from different angles, there may be a big deviation, and it cannot be said that this worry is wrong.
It is good to have such a decision-making trend. Of course, it is necessary to make decisions cautiously based on more scientific research and from the perspective of social management.
The Paper, News reporter Duan Yanchao, intern Xiao Yudi