Editorial

Abstract

The 3rd International Wild Boar Symposium was organised by the Research Unit of the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management and was held in Uppsala, Sweden, in September 2000. The Symposium gathered almost 50 wildlife researchers and managers from Australia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The timing and location of the Symposium in Sweden was fitting, due to the rapid increase of the Swedish wild boar population. The debate among farmers, sportsmen and governmental authorities clearly indicated the necessity to synthesise knowledge and experience from around the world. The presentations given at the 3rd International Wild Boar Symposium covered a wide range of topics, such as effects of wild boar on farmed crops and livestock, social organisation, population structure, effects of hunting on wild boar behaviour, supplemental feeding and effects of predators. Other important aspects of wild boar behaviour were dynamics of home range establishment, activity patterns during foraging, as well as home range use and the role of the wild boar in increasing biodiversity. Both managers and scientists agreed on the necessity of increased co-operation to meet the needs of managers, to improve the scientific knowledge about wild boars, and to develop better monitoring methods. It was concluded that regular international Symposia and workshops would contribute to reaching these goals. To stimulate increased scientific soundness and transparency of the presented results, we chose WILDLIFE BIOLOGY as an international forum to publish the proceedings, and this encouraged the participants to produce high quality papers for the Symposium. It also will increase the distribution of the proceedings. All papers that were submitted from the 3rd International Wild Boar Symposium for publication in WILDLIFE BIOLOGY were critically reviewed by at least two scientists, many of whom had not participated in the Symposium. The same criteria and standards were used as for other manuscripts submitted to WILDLIFE BIOLOGY. The referees' recommendations helped the authors improve their manuscripts and were of great help to the Editor-in-Chief of WILDLIFE BIOLOGY, Jon E. Swenson, and me when deciding which papers would be included in this supplementary issue of WILDLIFE BIOLOGY. We hope you find this Proceedings issue of WILDLIFE BIOLOGY to be as stimulating and thought provoking as we do. We also express our thanks to the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency for financing the Symposium and publication of the proceedings.