Action taken to keep wild boars at bay

Serious violation

A document released by China Judgements Online shows that four farmers from Loudi, Hunan province, were sentenced to imprisonment or placed under supervision for hunting boars.

The court considered the farmers' actions to be a serious violation of hunting regulations, resulting in damage to local wildlife resources.

In 2018, the farmers found that wild boars were feeding on sweet potatoes on their land. Two of them captured a couple of the animals by using an electric shock method. Several days later, three of the farmers used this method to hunt boars, but failed to find any. The farmers were then arrested.

Beijing News reported that in 2020, a woman in her 60s surnamed Wu was sentenced to three months' detention after being found guilty of illegal hunting.

In 2019, Wu bought an electric fence to protect her farmland on the outskirts of Bazhong city, Sichuan, from wild boars. However, she broke the law in her attempts to ward off the animals, as she accidentally electrocuted and killed three of them.

For seven years, Wu spent her nights in a simple shack in the mountains to combat frequent invasions from boars that had threatened her crops since 2014.

She used to harvest about 1,500 kilograms of corn a year, but with boars in the area, she only managed to harvest 300 kg, Beijing News reported.

To address conflicts between humans and wildlife, forestry departments and local governments have introduced compensation measures to reduce economic losses caused by wild boars.

As of October 2021, forestry department workers had successfully hunted 1,982 boars in 173 towns where the animals had caused damage. Compensation totaling about 3.76 million yuan was awarded to 5,960 households for the losses they experienced, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration said.