Abstract
The spread of the African swine fever through wild boar population has caused major losses in the pig industry. Therefore, to decrease the population density of wild boar in Poland, the culling of these animals has been dramatically increased. However, the effect of depopulation is unknown because there are no methods that could be used throughout the country to estimate the number of wild boar. Thus, during two hunting seasons an attempt was made to estimate the number of wild boar using data from collective hunts. The forested area of 21 hunting districts (351.5 km2) was divided into five sampling inventory blocks (SIBs), which were used for the statistical analysis of the population density, the harvest rate and results of collective hunts. The average population density obtained by a driving census amounted to 8.19 ± 1.12 and 10.09 ± 1.06 (x̅ ± SE), animals/km2, which indicates that 2879 and 3547 wild boar were living in the study area in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 seasons respectively. The number of wild boars bagged per one hunting plot was adopted as the harvest success index (HBI). In SIBs the HBI value fluctuated in the range of 0.55 to 1.87 individuals/hunting plot and the population density ranged from 6.46 to 12.18 wild boars/km2. The non-linear regression showed a positive relationship between the HBI index and the population density. The discussion covers the possibility of using collective hunts to estimate the number of wild boar in Poland and in the European Union.
Highlights
In Poland, game animals are not the property of landowners, but are national property
The data obtained from all belt transects indicates the normal distribution of population density (Shapiro–Wilk test: W = 0.9526, p = 0.2474)
The mean population density indicates that in February 2013, the number of wild boar in the study area amounted to 2.879 individuals
Summary
In Poland, game animals are not the property of landowners, but are national property. Game management is conducted within 4691 hunting districts covering a combined total of 256,183 km and 82% of Poland’s national territory (Central Statistical Office 2020). Hunting districts are leased to hunting clubs for 10 years period. Hunting clubs are nongovernmental organisations with the status of legal persons. They are obliged to carry out comprehensive game management on the leased areas, which involves taking inventories
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