Report of the 1st Annual General Meeting of ENETWILD Parma, 16‐18 January 2018

Abstract

The ENETWILD consortium (www.enetwild.com) has implemented an EFSA‐funded project whose main objective is to collect information and model the geographical distribution and abundance of wild boar throughout Europe. This is of particular concern owing to the spread of African swine fever from Eastern areas. In January 2018, ENETWILD organised discussion workshops for 70 experts in the field of the ecology, management and epidemiology of wild boar. Three workshops addressed the following questions: (1) what kind of data is needed to develop wild boar abundance maps?; (2) how can estimates of boar abundance be harmonised between regions?; and (3) how can the collection of wild boar distribution and abundance data be improved? In order to collect data on the presence/absence and abundance of wild boar obtained from different sources (administrations, hunters, naturalists and researchers), it is necessary to work on the generation, collection and processing of data in a harmonised manner, thus enabling the information to be comparable and used at a European level. The use of information on hunting statistics (number of animals hunted and hunting effort per surface unit) is particularly essential. The strategy is based on, firstly, collecting existing non‐harmonised wild boar data in the short‐term (occurrence and hunting statistics) by collecting the more accessible data. As a second step, ENETWILD distributed a questionnaire on how and where the data concerning hunting statistics are collected throughout the different Countries or regions in Europe. The objective of this questionnaire was to identify those places in which hunting statistics are still disaggregated (at the highest spatial resolution), with the purpose of standardising the means employed to collect hunting data in Europe. The following step consisted of the appropriate collection of data, using a data model and supported by a data‐sharing agreement.