Wild Boar Research – A Never Ending Story?

Abstract

Wild boar science is changing a lot. The species wild boar ( Sus scrofa ), once threatened, is one of the latest domesticated species. Wild boar is so successful that currently it causes strong economic and ecological damages all over the world. The interest in Sus scrofa continues to grow rapidly, not only within its native range, but also in all other continents where wild boar and feral pigs have been introduced. Environmentally sensitive and adaptative management plus conservation of wild boar, feral pigs and other suids is of increasing concern to conservation biologists, wildlife managers, veterinarians, policy makers and the general public. Important advances in research may help managing wild boar as a pest and other suids as threatened species. Also a good exchange with stakeholders is of huge importance within wildlife management. In this special issue of Wildlife Biology in Practice some results from the 9th International Symposium on Wild Boar and other Suids as well as additional publications on wild boar are centralised. All together 110 participants from 24 countries took part at the 9 th ISWB in Hannover, Germany. The main part of the 59 presentations focused on wild boar management and monitoring (29 contributions). These numbers points out the importance of wild boar in all parts of its current distribution area. Everywhere populations are increasing (with some very few exceptions). In many of these regions economic problems, mainly by agricultural damages, road accidents and animal diseases are the main drivers for scientific interests. Recently many researchers try to establish, or even to create, reliable and practical census methods. Only with reliable data on numbers, reproduction, im- and emigration as well as mortality rates, managers will be able to know the efficiency of management methods. Even if a lot of effort is done, it looks like we are still far away from successful control of wild boar or feral pigs’ populations. This leads to the "human dimension": are wildlife managers able to regulate populations without or in other cases with the hunters? Thecontributionsanddiscussionson this symposium showed that the knowledge on the "well known" wild boar so far is incomplete. Recent studies show, that this "plastic" species is still changing its behaviour in space and habitat use, activities, reproduction and many other matters. We are not at the beginning of the knowledge on wild boar, however, we are far away from a nearly understanding of this fascinating species.