Wander through Berlin at night and you might come across 100-strong herds of wild boars. Apparently the pulling down of the wall not only liberated the Ossies, but was a red-letter day for the piggies too (via Mirabilis):
“Autumn is when mating customarily hits stride for the Middle European Wild Boar (Sus scrofa scrofa), but as Germany’s once-divided capital marks its fifteenth year of reunification next month, the habits of these urban animals have gone haywire. “It used to be they were born in February or March, and would be fertile a year later. Now it’s November of the same year.” When the wall that separated West Berlin from the surrounding forests fell, a historic migration passage opened. That change, combined with the withdrawal of occupying allied forces (American troops were especially avid hunters) and, more recently, a wave of abnormally warm summers, is believed to have triggered the reproductive and other mutations. The urban boar population went from a timid, manageable estimated three thousand in 1989 to the current numbers.
Not just the boars’ numbers but their physical appearance and behaviours have changed. By day, they roam the outer neighbourhoods in “sounders” of up to seven, then follow Berlin’s star-shaped system of parks and abandoned factories into the city at night in search of food, where they form groups that often exceed a hundred. These boars actively seek out human habitats – a third have never been to a forest. Committed omnivores, they’re more prone to strike gardens or the family dog than they are humans, unless you stumble between a Bachen and her Frischlinges. Females bite, males attack with tusks. They’ve devoured jagged strips through parks across Berlin. Last year, they caused more than four hundred traffic accidents in the city, some of them fatal. “If you hit a pig at a hundred kilometres an hour, you’re pretty much dead,” says the Jagdreferent.
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