Colleagues and lecturers at the Faculty of Environmental Protection, Prof. Elena Bužan, PhD, and Prof. Boštjan Pokorny, PhD, together with co-authors, have published a scientific paper in the journal European Journal of Wildlife Research titled “Mapping wild boar density across Europe: combining spatial models and density estimates.”
The study provides the first scientifically supported estimate of wild boar abundance and population densities across European countries for the period before the emergence of African swine fever (ASF). The authors combined data on wild boar observations and hunting bags and calibrated them using statistical models with robust density estimates from 77 sites across Europe, where camera-trap research is conducted within the European projects European Observatory of Wildlife and Biodiversa+ Big_Picture.
The results indicate that, in Europe, between 13.5 and 19.6 million wild boar lived during the summer–autumn period (i.e., after farrowing but before the main hunting season). These findings are important for improving future management of the species, including risk assessment for the spread of ASF and other diseases for which wild boar act as a reservoir and/or vector.
Link to the article (open access):
Mapping wild boar density across Europe: combining spatial models and density estimates | European Journal of Wildlife Research | Springer Nature Link.