Identification of High-Priority Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) Control Areas by Predicting Potential Habitat and Crop Damage

Abstract

Background and objective: The wild boar (Sus scrofa) is a highly mobile, fertile, clever, stealthy, and adaptable animal. It is distributed around the world and inhabits a fairly wide range of habitats, which results in frequent friction and conflict with humans. Disturbances caused by wild boars, such as crop damage on agricultural land and the spread of African swine fever, has recently been increasing in Korea, making it necessary to confirm the habitat range of wild boars and to predict the possibility of future crop damage.Methods: The locations of Gapyeong-gun, Namyangju-si, Yangpyeong-gun, and Gwangju-si in Gyeonggi-do, where crop damage caused by wild boars is confirmed to be serious, were selected as the study area. Data from 2nd to 4th National Natural Environment Surveys (covering three periods of respectively 8, 8, and 5 years) were used to analyze the continuity of potential boar habitat, and data from point samples of crop damage were used to identify areas with a high probability of future crop damage. The MaxEnt model was used to analyze potential habitats and crop-damage areas based on 15 environmental variables selected through literature research.Results: The average area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) of the resulting potential habitat models for the three survey periods was 0.644, and the AUC of the crop damage prediction model was relatively high at 0.850. The resulting key crop-damage priority management areas were Seorak-myeon, Gapyeong-gun; Sudong-myeon, Namyangju-si; Joan-myeon, Namyangju-si; Sang-myeon and Gapyeong-gun; Gapyeong-eup, Gapyeong-gun.Conclusion: This study illustrates changes in the spatial distribution of wild boars in Korea based on time-series survey records from 1997 to 2018. These findings are expected to be useful as reliable reference data for setting priorities when establishing future measures to prevent crop damage, such as managing the number of wild boars in Gyeonggi-do.