looduskalender.ee

 

The Round Table discussion about the Animal of the Year is published as a serial. Taking part in the discussion: Executive Director of the Estonian Hunters’ Society Tõnis Korts, Deputy Executive Director Andres Lillemäe, hunter and organiser of nature trips Vahur Sepp, zoologist and wild boar behavioural investigator Ragne Oja, Looduskalender editor Gennadi Skromnov and editors of journal Loodusesõber Helen Arusoo and Mats Kangur.

 

How to catch a great number of wild boars without disturbing wildlife and without letting the disease move on in Estonia? A solution would be a catch trap, an enclosure: not any kind of enclosure trap, but a special one. The boars caught there will still have to be shot, but the killing is there with other hunting methods too, as we saw in the previous Round Table part, because the mandatory numbers to be killed are large. Still, the enclosure traps have one advantage: the boars will not be running around outside and it is possible to control the spread of the disease faster.

 

Gennadi: Let us talk about catch or enclosure traps.

 

Vahur: To start with I would like to ask if you know what we are talking about? Has anyone of you seen a wild boar enclosure trap?

 

Andres Lillemäe: I have.

 

Vahur Sepp: What did this trap look like?

 

Andres Lillemäe: It was a fence, about 2x2 metres with a steel trap door, a rope went to the food area, a pole was set against the wall;, the boar herd went in, the door fell shut. Inside were a large male, a sow, 6-7 young pigs and piglets. By morning the male had banged his tusks down, the rest of the herd had smashed their snouts against the walls. The sow went mad when the first piglet was shot because she realised that she could not protect her piglets – it was a horrible picture.

 

Vahur Sepp:  I have constructed another kind of trap with a different working principle. When we had to shoot some 100 boars annually in the Soviet period, I built five enclosure traps that were worked out by trial and error. They were oval-shaped, with a gate at each end. In such a trap, I have had 24 boars as maximum.  Such traps work selectively – the lead sows stay out of it. Because they stay outside to keep watch. Why the trap is circular – in a square trap the animals run into a corner and get injured. Shooting 24 boars – I agree – it is not hunting. But if you go into the forest to shoot these 24 boars, how long would it take?

 

Andres Lillemäe: A month or longer.

 

Vahur Sepp: And you disturb forest life. Quite certainly nobody will manage to get down this number only from shooting towers. You shoot one boar, for a week or two not one animal will turn up on the feeding ground – how long will you be there stalking? Catching in enclosures doesn’t disturb forest life. I agree that a provisional enclosure is not suitable for boars. I have never seen the male in the enclosure with the herd. I caught young boars, the lead sows kept out of the trap

 

Tõnis Korts: I support Vahur. But why are we opposed to these devices – they require professional handling. If each such enclosure trap had a professional hunter it would be a different story. Such hunting would be extremely efficient and would bring down the boar population. ”Amateurs” would have no cause to work with enclosures.

 

Gennadi: Hunters can be trained quite quickly. We have to do with once-only measures for the disease period – an emergency. Some ten hunters for all Estonia, a three-day practical training  on how to build and  hunt at feeding sites, and quick action, but there are still enough unsolved accompanying problems (ASF test samples, preserving the meat etc).

 

Tõnis Korts: Feeding grounds can be used?

 

Vahur Sepp: Yes, I put out food the year round in these enclosures. About enclosure traps, I proposed these already last year and hoped that we would bring down the number of boars during the 2014/2015 winter so that the ASF would not reach domestic pigs. At first I was shocked when I wasn’t heard but then I realised that any man who made such a suggestion and really brought down the numbers would still have been lynched. He would have been told: look, ASF never came. But what you did ...!! Someone must have the social courage to propose this solution at all.

 

Gennadi Skromnov:  Rather similar enclosures are used by reindeer breeders and with similar aims.

 

Vahur Sepp: Last year when I wanted to talk about trap enclosures in my hunting district I was told that Look here, Sepp, don’t talk about it here now, what if somebody actually makes one.  We tell you, this pest will pass, it will pass by itself!!!!!!!

 

Tõnis Korts: The understanding of the ASF problem varies very much between districts. It can’t be changed in one day. When I see the map of Estonia and the map of the spread of the plague I can see how people’s comprehension has changed corresponding to the spread of the disease. There are total differences. In Valga and Viljandi counties the questions today are different because the disease has been there and there are no boars. The Lilli hunting society men ask: do we disinfect the feeding ground in case some other boars come so that they won’t be infected?  There the men have already understood it all. From Hiiumaa or Läänemaa however we get questions like before the arrival of the ASF.

 

Vahur Sepp: There are two alternatives currently: either that we let the ASF do its work on the boars or we take control ourselves. In the latter case we may be able to preserve some areas in Estonia that the disease will not reach – we keep the number of boars low until the ASF passes.

 

The serial from the hunters’ round table continues.