Across Europe, wild boar numbers increased in the 1960s-1970s but stabilised in the 1980s; recent evidence suggests that the numbers and impact of wild boar has grown steadily since the 1980s. As hunting is the main cause of mortality for this species, we reviewed wild boar hunting bags and hunter population trends in 18 European countries from 1982 to 2012. Hunting statistics and numbers of hunters were used as indicators of animal numbers and hunting pressure. The results confirmed that wild boar increased consistently throughout Europe, while the number of hunters remained relatively stable or declined in most countries. We conclude that recreational hunting is insufficient to limit wild boar population growth and that the relative impact of hunting on wild boar mortality had decreased. Other factors, such as mild winters, reforestation, intensification of crop production, supplementary feeding and compensatory population responses of wild boar to hunting pressure might also explain population growth. As populations continue to grow, more human-wild boar conflicts are expected unless this trend is reversed. New interdisciplinary approaches are urgently required to mitigate human-wild boar conflicts, which are otherwise destined to grow further.

Millions of wild animals are killed annually on roads worldwide. During spring 2020, the volume of road traffic was reduced globally as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. We gathered data on wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) from Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and for Scotland and England within the United Kingdom. In all studied countries WVC statistics tend to be dominated by large mammals (various deer species and wild boar), while information on smaller mammals as well as birds are less well recorded. The expected number of WVC for 2020 was predicted on the basis of 2015–2019 WVC time series representing expected WVC numbers under normal traffic conditions. Then, the forecasted and reported WVC data were compared. The results indicate varying levels of WVC decrease between countries during the COVID-19 related traffic flow reduction (CRTR). While no significant change was determined in Sweden, where the state-wide response to COVID-19 was the least intensive, a decrease as marked as 37.4% was identified in Estonia. The greatest WVC decrease, more than 40%, was determined during the first weeks of CRTR for Estonia, Spain, Israel, and Czechia. Measures taken during spring 2020 allowed the survival of large numbers of wild animals which would have been killed under normal traffic conditions. The significant effects of even just a few weeks of reduced traffic, help to highlight the negative impacts of roads on wildlife mortality and the need to boost global efforts of wildlife conservation, including systematic gathering of roadkill data.

We estimated birth rates in wild boar Sus scrofa by counting embryos in the uterus of females killed in individual or drive hunts. Counting corpora lutea in the ovaries gave information on embryo '.corpus luteum rate, which can be useful for estimating birth rates in early stages of pregnancy. Birth rates were estimated separately for the different age groups. Age was estimated by means of teeth wear. Survival was estimated by direct observations counting the piglet:female ratio in matrilineal groups. The method is suitable for assessing summer survival only, as 8-9 months after birth, matrilineal groups begin to disintegrate. Average estimated birth rate was 6.7 ±2.1 (N = 51).We found a positive linear relationship between conception rate and age of female, con ception rate and body mass, and conception rate and body length, respective ly. In late stages of pregnancy, embryo '.corpus luteum rate proved to be 0.83 ± 0.15. Recruitment of piglets to the female population was low; more than half of the piglets had perished by the end of September. The highest mortality rate occurred in the first weeks of the piglets' lives.

No abstract

No abstract