African swine fever vs. COVID-19: only one virus mattered for wild boar hunting bags in Europe

Valentina Barukčić, Boštjan Pokorny, Jacopo Cerri, Klaus Hackländer, Ferdinand Bego, Alain Licoppe, Jim Casaer, Dalibor Ballian, Stoyan Stoyanov, Miloš Ježek, Mervi Kunnasranta, Elmo Miettinen, Eric Baubet, Oliver Keuling, Konstantinos Papakostas, András Náhlik, Andrea Monaco, Jānis Ozoliņš, Olgrida Belova, Sandra Cellina, Miloš Janković, Niels de Nijs, Barbara Zimmermann, Tomasz Podgórski, Carlos Fonseca, Attila Farkas, Nickolay Markov, Dragan Gačić, Petar Lazár, Joana Colomer, Göran Bergqvist, Claude Fischer, Giovanna Massei, Nikica Šprem

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) populations have been steadily increasing across Europe in the last decades, due to the synergy between landscape modifications, the ecological plasticity of the species and global warming. However, since 2014, an increasing number of these populations have also been affected by African swine fever (ASF) and have experienced increased mortality. Moreover, in 2020 and 2021, wild boar hunting regimes were temporarily changed due to restrictions in response to COVID-19. There is therefore a need for a pan-European assessment of the long-term trend in wild boar populations. We analysed wild boar hunting bags from 21 European countries, as a proxy of population abundance, to estimate long-term trends between 2000 and 2022. We also identified possible changes in harvests due to COVID-19. Finally, we summarized changes in the number of hunters between 2018 and 2023 in 19 European countries. Wild boar harvest has increased steadily over the last two decades, peaking at over 3.6 million harvested individuals in 2019. Since the appearance of ASF in Europe, hunting bags in most affected countries decreased, i.e. either immediately after the first outbreak or following a short-term increase of the harvest after the outbreak. Restrictions due to COVID-19 did not have any clear impact on the total number of harvested wild boar. Over the past six years, in spite of mixed trends between the countries, the overall number of hunters has decreased across Europe.