BERLIN - (KRT) - "Paris has the boulevards. Rome has the fountains. But here, well, they've got the pigs. Lots of pigs. Big ones. Wild ones. They don't call them pigs, of course. Here, they're called Wildschwein, which translates to wild pigs, or wild boars. And they're all over the news these days.
Look in Der Tagesspiegel and there's a picture of a momma boar, okay, a sow, suckling five piglets. She's resting against the passenger side wheel of a sedan, which is parked in front of an apartment building. A few days ago, in southwestern Berlin, a 54-year-old man encountered a boar, of all places, hiding under his dining room table. The boar bit him when he tried to shoo it away.
Boars are not cute creatures. Typically weighing between 200 and 300 pounds, they can be aggressive, using their five-inch tusks as weapons - especially females with litters. Berliners like to say their boars rarely attack, and many residents put out food for them or don't complain as they root through a city park or private garden. Some note that the boars line up outside doors, like pets, waiting for their meals.
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Posted on Wed, Jan. 14, 2004
Wild boars running rampant in Berlin to delight, fear of Germans
BY MATTHEW SCHOFIELD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BERLIN - (KRT) - Paris has the boulevards. Rome has the fountains. But here, well, they've got the pigs.
Lots of pigs. Big ones. Wild ones. They don't call them pigs, of course. Here, they're called Wildschwein, which translates to wild pigs, or wild boars. And they're all over the news these days.
Look in Der Tagesspiegel and there's a picture of a momma boar, okay, a sow, suckling five piglets. She's resting against the passenger side wheel of a sedan, which is parked in front of an apartment building. A few days ago, in southwestern Berlin, a 54-year-old man encountered a boar, of all places, hiding under his dining room table. The boar bit him when he tried to shoo it away.
Boars are not cute creatures. Typically weighing between 200 and 300 pounds, they can be aggressive, using their five-inch tusks as weapons - especially females with litters.
Berliners like to say their boars rarely attack, and many residents put out food for them or don't complain as they root through a city park or private garden. Some note that the boars line up outside doors, like pets, waiting for their meals.
That has meant closer encounters with human residents. In recent months, they've been spotted in the center of what was old East Berlin, Alexanderplatz. "There were two of them, hunting for food," said Marc Franusch of the Berlin forest administration. "They had some people worried."
The boars even disrupted training on the grounds of Hertha BSC, the city's largest professional soccer club, "Yes, they were tearing up one of the training pitches," team official James Jakob said. "We brought in a hunter, who studied their habits for a week, then shot them. He kept the meat."
The boars have been here longer than the city. But they've increased in numbers recently because of warm winters, an increase in corn grown by area farmers and the fact that between trash and boar lovers, there's an abundant food supply in the city. The city recently has established a wild animal hotline and a law against feeding boars. The city of 4 million also has an official whose title bespeaks a not so compassionate face toward the boar - hunting consultant. Derk Ehlert, who holds the position, said that in the last year, 2,400 wild boar have been killed in the city, a number which does not count the many that died in car accidents. He estimates the total Berlin population to be 8,000 or more, hiding in the official forests, city parks and the greenways along train lines."
EDIT
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/world/7711202.htm
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