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Management of Wild Boar in Protected Areas: The Case of Elba Island

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Problematic Wildlife

Abstract

From the 1960s onwards, the European wild boar population has grown and expanded dramatically, invading agricultural areas and causing increasing damage to croplands and economic losses. The problem is particularly weighty in protected areas, where hunting is forbidden. In these areas the main ways the problem is tackled is through shooting, compensation payments after claims and prevention using electric fences. The aim of this study, based on the case of Elba Island (Central Italy), was to apply a management model for wild boar populations in protected areas able to mitigate social and economic conflicts with farmers and hunters. We identified which types of crops and structures were sensitive to damage, and the months in which the events were concentrated. Leslie–Davis and Ricker models were used to estimate the wild boar population in every year. Population viability analyses (PVAs) were carried out to define the minimum control effort that can lead to a strong population decline. Finally, to identify the areas most at risk of damage, we built a predictive model, using an ensemble forecasting approach, averaging the prediction obtained following Resource Selection Probability Functions and the maximum entropy algorithm Maxent.

Damage was concentrated mainly on vineyards and dry walls. There was a significant negative trend of damage during the study period, whereas the number of wild boars shot increased significantly. Removal methods failed to provide a precise estimate of the population present on the Elba Island because of the high variability of the catch per unit effort. PVAs showed that only a heavy control effort concentrated on reproductive females is effective in markedly decreasing the population size and its survival probability. The model-average indicated that more than 45 % of the Elba Island is classified either in the high or in the maximum classes of risk, with areas most at risk of damage distributed particularly in the southern part of the island.

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Acknowledgements

The research was funded by the Tuscan Archipelago National Park. We thank the Hunting District n. 10 of Livorno province, that provided the hunting data from 1999 to 2009, and two anonymous referees that reviewed an early draft of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, Pavia, 27100, Italy

    Alberto Meriggi, Marco Lombardini, Pietro Milanesi & Paolo Lamberti

  2. Province of Pavia, Via Taramelli 2, Pavia, 27100, Italy

    Anna Brangi

  3. Tuscan Archipelago National Park, Loc. Enfola, Portoferraio, Livorno, Italy

    Francesca Giannini

Authors
  1. Alberto Meriggi
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  2. Marco Lombardini
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  3. Pietro Milanesi
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  4. Anna Brangi
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  5. Paolo Lamberti
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  6. Francesca Giannini
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Correspondence to Alberto Meriggi .

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  1. FIZV, Rome, Italy

    Francesco M. Angelici

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Meriggi, A., Lombardini, M., Milanesi, P., Brangi, A., Lamberti, P., Giannini, F. (2016). Management of Wild Boar in Protected Areas: The Case of Elba Island. In: Angelici, F. (eds) Problematic Wildlife. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22246-2_11

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