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France battles to repel marauding pigs

Wild Boar
A traditional wild boar  

August is usually the season of forest fires in Var, a picturesque county in south-east France.

This year, however, the area is suffering from an altogether different type of natural disaster -- pigs.

Marauding bands of "sanglochons" -- a cross between a wild boar (sanglier) and domestic pig (cochon) -- have been wreaking havoc throughout the Alpes-Maritime region of which Var is a part.

"The other night I was woken by a strange noise," said Christian Deschamps, 52, from the village of Madeleine. "I went outside, taking my dog with me as a precaution, and found a sow and her piglets in the process of eating my lawn. It's the third time it's happened this month."

Marcel Laugier, a local wildlife officer, said: "They're everywhere. It's like a plague. They come into inhabited areas and root through bins and dig up lawns and drink out of swimming pools. They're extremely greedy. I get a constant stream of calls from people complaining about them."

The town of Saint Raphael has been particularly badly affected.

"It's a huge problem," said Jacques Rocca of the local mayor's office. "They're digging up crops and coming right into the town destroying lawns and gardens. It's getting increasingly hard to control them."

Sanglochons in history

Sanglochons were first bred in Belgium and north-west France at the end of the last century, when sanglochon ham was considered something of a delicacy. The breed gradually died out, but was resurrected in the 1980s when farmers in the Alpes-Maritimes, looking for new products, again began rearing them.

The experiment didn't prove successful, however, and, unable to find a market for their pigs, many farmers simply released them into the wild.

Their fast breeding rate has meant that over the last 20 years their numbers have increased by 600 percent, and it is now estimated there are over 10,000 of them roaming the Var alone. The problem has been exacerbated in the Saint Raphael region by the closure of a nearby sanglochon sanctuary.

"The pigs were used to people feeding them," explained Rocca. "When it ran out of money and had to be closed they were let loose in the wild and naturally started coming into the town for food."

The authorities fight back

Many people argue that the pigs are harmless and should be left to their own devices.

"They give them bread and camembert and croissants," says Laugier. "They don't seem to realise what a menace they are."

The authorities, however, are determined to take a hard line. The start of the wild boar hunting season has been brought forward a month, from September 15 to August 15, in an effort to kill as many of them as possible.

A 1995 by-law which gives wildlife officers the power to employ huntsmen to kill potentially dangerous wild animals "at any time and in any place," has also been widely invoked to kill sanglochons in built-up areas.

Although 1,820 have been shot dead already this year, however, the problem shows no sign of abating.

Nor is France the only part of Europe to be experiencing pig difficulties at present.

Increasing numbers of wild boar have been entering the suburbs of Berlin in search of food, while last year the Polish town of Swinoujscie was besieged by a group of 80 wild pigs.

In Corsica, meanwhile, a number of coastal resorts have reported problems with the island's own version of the sanglochon: The cochonglier.

"There's no doubt that if they get into the wild they can be a real problem," says Michel Van der Oost, a sanglochon breeder from Neufchateau in Belgium. "They can be very naughty and wilful, and aggressive too sometimes. Mind you, they make wonderful sausages."



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