Poland gov't explains decision to kill 200,000 wild boars

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A decision has been made. Two hundred thousand wild boars will be put to death in Poland.

Environmentalists across Europe met the news with condemnation, particularly after an announcement by the Polish government that plans to do that by the middle of March 2018.

The government rationale behind the decision was an attempt to contain African swine fever, that can bring devastation to the pig farms across the country.

So a grim fate is awaiting more than two hundred thousand wild boars in Poland that are to be hunt down and shot by the hunters.

A dog was seen eating wild boar after it was shot by the hunters in Poland. /Screenshot from YouTube

Poland has an estimated 240,000 to 250,000 of the animals. Conservationists say killing 80 percent of them is an overreaction from the government.

But it is not just them that express their outrage. Opposition to that decision came from a very unexpected source – the hunter's associations. Some of them were even describing this decision for the mass cull as "sick in the head."

Government backtracking

But after the Polish government was faced with the salvo of public outcry and criticism, they've backtracked and blamed poor interpretation of their original statement on the issue.

Now, instead of hunting down and killing 200,000 wild boars in the next couple of months, they are claiming that the figure is for the entire year.

We spoke with the Polish Minister of Environment Henryk Kowalczyk asking to give the government point of view. Mr. Kowalczyk gave us the government's mathematics behind the decision for this mass cull.

Polish Minister of the Environment Henryk Kowalczyk. /CGTN Photo

"The population of 240-250 thousand is always counted at the end of March of every year. So, since that moment, the boars reproduce very efficiently, and their numbers go up at least by 200 percent. So, in one year, they go up by about 500,000." Minister Kowalczyk said.

"Some are killed by the predators, but still at least 250-300 thousand boars are added in a year. In other words at the end of March next year, there should be again about 250,000 boars, so the population will not go down."

But environmentalists are not buying this explanation, as we spoke with Tomasz Zdojewski, a member of an anti-hunting NGO Let Live Campaign. Tomasz claims that the decision is not based on the risk of African swine fever, but to satisfy the interests of groups whose votes the government needs.

Anti-hunting environmentalist Tomasz Zdrojewski /CGTN Photo

"It's a political decision that fulfills the demands of farmers. They openly say that they want all wild boars in the country to be killed. It is the position of pig farmers," Tomasz claims.

"And farmers who grow crops also have a hidden goal in this depopulation, or extermination, of wild boars. They want to get rid of damage to the crops inflicted by the wild boars."

Environmentalists say this mass cull won't just fail to stop African swine fever, but it might inflict irreversible damage to the ecosystem. That's something the Polish government has recently been accused of when it allowed commercial logging in one of Europe's last primeval forests.

(The top picture is a screenshot from YouTube)