Wild boars terrorising tiny Italian island face cull after boy’s genitals bitten

About 80 wild boars live on Spargi, a small island in the Maddalena archipelago of Sardinia, known for its dazzling white sand beaches and turquoise bays. Photo / 123rf

A tiny Italian island is being terrorised by a population of beach-dwelling wild boars that are attacking tourists, recently biting a boy on the genitals.

About 80 wild boars live on Spargi, a small island in the Maddalena archipelago of Sardinia, known for its dazzling white sand beaches and turquoise bays.

In the sixth documented boar attack on the island since June, a 9-year-old boy was bitten in the groin last month, leaving him with injuries that required six stitches in a local hospital.

The attack prompted Fabio Lai, the local mayor, to order a cull of the wild and aggressive swine.

The proposed slaughter has led to a bitter row between local authorities and environmentalists, who say it is not the boars which are to blame, but tourists who offer them food.

The island, which lies off the north coast of Sardinia, is uninhabited, but during the summer, people arrive by boat to swim, snorkel and have picnics.

Signs were recently erected on the island telling tourists not to feed the swine, with fines of up to €2065 ($3690), but the ban is difficult to enforce.

The hogs now associate human visitors with food and have become emboldened, with some snatching sandwiches and other treats from beachgoers.

The clash between pigs and people is part of a broader problem of uncontrolled tourism on the picturesque island, according to Claudio Denzi, the president of a local sailing association, who is opposed to the cull.

“Each day, around 6000 tourists arrive on the island, bringing with them umbrellas, bags, food, cigarettes, without any regulations. The more irresponsible give the boars food so that they can take a selfie. It’s certainly not the fault of the boars,” he said.

“The problem is linked to a level of tourism that is no longer sustainable, with boats that pollute the sea and deliver thousands of people to the island.”

The large number of day trippers is leading to the erosion of the island’s beaches.

“Every person who leaves the island unwittingly takes with them an average of 93g of sand,” he said.

Piera Rosati, the president of LNDC, an animal welfare organisation, said that culling the boars was “a useless spilling of blood”.

The National Association for the Protection of Animals said in a statement: “Killing these animals in some sort of vendetta will not resolve anything. The boars are ‘guilty’ only of being approached and disturbed by tourists.”

The culling was due to begin in late August, but the association temporarily blocked the operation with an injunction.

Local authorities should have acted long ago to rein in the “bad behaviour” of tourists who feed the animals, it argued.

It suggested that rather than shooting the boars, there were other means of controlling their numbers, such as sterilising the males.

Eleonora Evi, an MP with the centre-Left Democratic Party, is also opposed to a cull, saying that the animals should not be punished for the thoughtless behaviour of visitors to the island. “The boars are not to blame,” she said.

Across Italy, there are an estimated 2.3 million boars. Each year, they cause €200 million of damage to crops, as well as traffic accidents when they are hit by vehicles while crossing roads.