Environment Minister to get tough on wild boar
The Flemish Environment Minister Zuhal Demir (nationalist) intends to launch new measures to tackle the issue of nuisance from wild boar. Ms Demir says that professional hunters could be deployed to deal with local overpopulations of the animals that have been seen in increasing numbers in Flanders in recent years.
While the Minister recognises that wild boar have a place in our environment, she says that nuisance from the animals needs to be kept to a minimum. Therefore, hunting them needs to be concentrated more in areas where they could cause damage such as on farmland during the summer months. This would serve to drive the wild boar away into nature reserves. In the winter the hunting activity could be extended to the entire area in which the boar live in order to reduce their numbers.
If local hunters are unable to keep the hindrance from wild boar under control municipal authorities could, together with the Flemish regional authority, use professional hunters to deal with the boar in residential or recreational areas or at cemeteries.
An early warning and rapid response team made up of professional hunters will be used to locate and eradicate new groups of wild boar as quickly as possible in areas where the animals cause a lot of damage.
Ms Demir is also going to ask the Federal Food Safety Agency for permission to sell the meat of the animals that have been shot. Currently they are for hunters' own consumption only.
Any hunters that are caught releasing wild boar into the wild will face a lifetime hunting ban.