Wild boars colonised in urban areas of Coimbatore district cause concern

Motorists, particularly two-wheeler riders have expressed concern over wild boar attacks at nights.

Movement of wild boar has become common in and around Vadavalli, Kanuvai, Pannimadai, Thondamuthur and Siruvani Road at night posing a threat to motorists, especially two-wheeler riders.

Biologists and Forest Department staff say that a considerable number of wild boars have colonised in urban and semi-urban pockets where they live in bushes of unused lands, thickets along streams and vegetation around small tanks.

In May this year, a 35-year-old man was killed after the moped he rode was hit by a wild boar at Thiruvalluvar Nagar, near Coimbatore. The accident took place in the morning and the wild boar that collided with the two-wheeler was believed to have been in the area to rummage through garbage dumped on the side of the road.

Sources with the Forest Department said that similar accidents had become common on Siruvani Road. In one of the incidents, a frontline worker of the department was injured after a wild boar hit his two-wheeler while it crossed the road near a private university.

According to biologist G. Sivasubramanian, most of the wild boars that are now damaging crops do not come from forests as they have colonised in available hideouts in human habitations itself. “Bushes and prosopis juliflora-dominated areas offer a perfect shelter for them to take rest during the day and engage in crop raids at night. As an omnivorous animal, they also scavenge meat waste and other food waste that are discarded improperly,” he said.

T. Muruganandam, president of Coimbatore Wildlife Conservation Trust, which is primarily doing conservation activities in and around the Maruthamalai foothills, said that wild boars were found roaming freely in the night in residential areas near Vadavalli that were even around five km off the forest boundary.

“They hide in the vegetation along river Noyyal in large numbers and venture out for food at night. They also occupy other unused areas with bushes in residential areas, too. Apart from raiding crops, now they are increasingly coming for scavenging food waste that is dumped on the sides of houses,” he said.

A senior forest official said that managing the locally colonised population and controlling them would be a tough task. Capturing wild boars and releasing them in dense forest areas could be one of the solutions. “The department has earlier captured wild boars using the age-old method of trapping them in large pits. Wild boars trapped in the Madukkarai area using the method were later released in the wild,” the official said.