Rome’s mayor has opened a criminal lawsuit against the surrounding Lazio regional government over “the massive and uncontrolled presence of wild boar in Italy’s capital”.
In recent years, Rome’s citizens and farmers have protested about wild boar wreaking havoc on their land and causing fatal car crashes. The animal is believed to be responsible for an average of 10,000 road accidents a year in the country.
The capital’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, of the Five Star Movement (M5S) has accused the regional government, led by former Democratic party (PD) leader Nicola Zingaretti, of being responsible for what she described as a “boar invasion” and failing to implement “effective management plans for these animals”.
Debate was rekindled in May by a video widely shared on social media that showed six wild boar surrounding and stealing the shopping from a woman who had just come out of a supermarket near Rome.
The animals, four adults and two piglets, pursue the woman as she backs away, attempting in vain to keep them at bay. She is then forced to drop the shopping bag on the ground, which is immediately raided by the boar.
In October last year, Raggi ordered an investigation after a family of wild boar, commonplace in the city, were shot and killed by police in a children’s playground near the Vatican. The event sparked protests by animal rights activists and some locals.
A report by Coldiretti, the country’s largest farmers’ association, said that there was one wild boar incident every 48 hours, with an increase in sightings of boar rummaging through rubbish in urban areas.
Italian farmers, animal breeders and shepherds staged a protest in July in front of the parliament in Rome against the “invasion” of wild boar into farmland and cities across the country, asking the government to end it. Banners read: “After Covid, the plague of boar”; “Let’s defend our land”; and “Town and country united against wild boar.”
Coldiretti said the increase in the number of the animals in some Italian regions was unsustainable and asked the authorities to intervene. “We must act as soon as possible and involve the army if necessary,” Coldiretti said in a statement in April, citing the situation in Piedmont.
Two million boar are estimated to roam Italy and hunting them is a popular pastime. Boar meat is a staple of Tuscan and Umbrian cuisine.
