Italian farmers protest wild boar 'invasion'

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 8 - Italian farmers took to the street in front of parliament and across the country Thursday to protest what they say is an "invasion" by wild boars into farmland and cities all over Italy.
    Farm group Coldiretti said that during the COVID year the number of wild boar straying onto farms and roving the outskirts of Italian cities had risen by 15% to a record total of 2.3 million animals.
    Coldiretti published what it called a "tragic" toll of one incident caused by the boar every 48 hours in a year of COVID.
    There have been 16 victims of wild boar incidents in the past year, and 215 people injured, Coldiretti said.
    The number of car crashes cause by animals on Italian provincial roads has risen by 81% over the past 10 years, the farmers association said.
    Farmers, animal breeders and shepherds from all over Italy gathered in all of Italy's 20 regional capitals starting in Rome where they rallied outside the parliament building, Montecitorio.
    They said they want to "stop a calamity that destroys crops, attacks animals, besieges stables and causes road accidents, with concrete dangers for farmers and citizens".
    A group of young farmers dressed up in boar costumes stopped MPs and explained to them the "emergency situation" they have to face each day.
    Other farmers brought fruit, salad ingredients and cereal crops that had been completely destroyed by boar.
    The protesters also held up life-size cut-outs of boar to show politicians how scary an encounter with the animals can be.
    They also waved banners reading "After COVID, the plague of boar", "We sow, the boar reap", "Let's defend our land" and "Town and country united against wild boar".
    Many city mayors came to Montecitorio, as well as ordinary citizens worried about what they called "a full-blown emergency".
    photo: Banner reads "We sow, the boar reap" (ANSA).