ROME (AP). Rome has been invaded over the centuries by vandals, Gauls, and Visigoths. But the Eternal City now faces a rampaging force from a completely different kind: the rubbish-seeking wild boars.
Romans are now seeing entire families of wild boars as they make their way down the streets to search for food in the notoriously overflowing garbage bins.
Wild boar videos have become a popular social media activity. Exasperated Romans captured the scavengers marching by their shops, strollers, or playgrounds.
The wild boar invasion is being used to attack Virginia Raggi, Rome's mayor, over its colossal garbage collection problems. Experts say that the problem is complicated and linked at least partially to a growing boar population.
Coldiretti, Italy's largest agriculture lobby, believes there are more than 2 million wild boars. According to the Lazio region around Rome, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 wild boars in city parks. A few hundred of these animals regularly abandon trees and green for asphalt and trash bins.
Lazio created a program to capture them in park cages to slaughter in 2019, and approved last month a new decree that allows selective hunting in parks.
Maurizio Guiubbiotti, Lazios Parks' director, said that the region must increase the annual boar cull from 700 in two years to at most 1,000 annually to control the situation.
Hunting wild boar in Italy's rural areas is a very popular sport. Most Italians have a long list wild boar recipes, including wild boar stew and pappardelle pasta with boar butter. Animal rights groups are strongly opposed to mass culling.
These beliefs are not shared with all urban dwellers.
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I'm afraid to walk on the sidewalk because there are dumpsters for rubbish on one side and the boars jump on me on the other," said Grazia (a 79-year old grandmother) waiting outside an elementary school to collect her grandchildren. She didn't give her last name.
A family of wild boars were snorting through trash just down the street.
These concerns are valid. Wild boars can reach 100 kilos (220 lb), measure 80 cm (2.6 ft) high and 150 cm (5 ft) long. This is a serious threat, especially for the elderly and young children.
Pino Consolati, who owns a restaurant in Rome's Monte Mario neighbourhood, complained that they have been invaded. According to him, wild boar families regularly wander his outdoor eating area in search of food. He said that his sister discovered 30 wild boars at her shoe shop when she went to leave at 8 p.m. this week.
He said it was not a pleasant situation and shrugged his shoulders.
