From today's New York Times:

Liebchen, There's a Piggish Eater on the Lawn
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

ERLIN, Aug. 27 � Gunshots rang out late the other night near Altestrasse, a street of imposing ocher houses and gardens alongside the Grunewald, the large forested park on the western edge of Berlin. There was no other way to deal with the marauders than to kill them.

It is not the usual way of handling disturbances in this city of low crime, but the people whose lawns and gardens were being mutilated had been given the cellphone numbers of specially trained marksmen available any time their properties were threatened.

When the marksmen arrived in the wee hours, they imposed the maximum on a few of the wild boars, whose numbers, and garden invasions, have shown an inconvenient increase lately.

"The situation for wild boars is perfect in Berlin," said Marc Franusch, a forest ranger and spokesman for the Berlin Forestry Office.

He was showing a visitor the areas affected by the proliferation of scary-looking, fast and usually hungry wild animals that can weigh more than 300 pounds and be found a mile or so from the Kurf�rstendam, one of Europe's most fashionable avenues.

The reasons so many wild boars are infesting the numerous parks and forest areas of the German capital are many, including the fact, obvious in the Grunewald, that most of the trees are oaks, and acorns are a wild boar's favorite food.

In addition, the fall of the Berlin Wall 14 years ago eliminated the main physical barrier between Berlin and the surrounding countryside, so many wild boars migrated into the city.

"If there's no food in the forest, there are lots of alternatives for them in the city," Mr. Franusch said, for example looking for garbage or digging for worms in somebody's back garden.

"They demolished the lawn; they ate all the tulip bulbs," complained Trautchen M�ller, who was padding about barefoot in a manicured grassy area on the border of the Grunewald where people can rent a little cabin and a patch of land and spend the summer cultivating roses.

"We put in a new fence," she said, "but two weeks ago they came again anyway."

The boars' habit of turning over sod in search of underground delicacies is the main problem, according to Mr. Franusch. "They're not dangerous," he said. "They don't bring diseases like, say, foxes do."

"But the damage is terrible," he said. "People always ask, `Who will pay?' But the answer is, `Nobody,' because the wild boars are not anybody's pets; they don't belong to anybody, and there's no government office responsible for what they do."

Newspapers here are reporting that there are 3,000 wild boars in Berlin, though Mr. Franusch did not know if that figure was correct. In the past year, 2,333 boars have been killed within the city limits, some by Forestry Department officers, others by private citizens who have been licensed by the department to hunt in an urban area, still others by passing cars. Anybody who kills a boar and wants the meat pays the city of Berlin for it by its weight.

Wild boars are not the only wild animal on the increase in Berlin or Germany either. Raccoons, those natives of North America who years ago escaped from cages on German fur farms, have been proliferating. So have marmots.

From time to time in the early morning or late afternoon, foxes are observed trotting past the towering wings of the Bundeskanzleramt, the building where Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der works. More alarming to some, wolves have been sighted crossing into Saxony from the Polish border about 100 miles southeast of here.

A few raccoons in the attic are, of course, not a problem unique to Germany. But to encounter a wild boar standing by your car when you are trying to get to work in the morning is something special about life in this city.

Boars have been sighted in the very center of town, in Alexanderplatz, for example, one of the city's main commercial squares in the former East Berlin. A few days ago, Berlin's largest soccer club, Hertha BSC Berlin, called in the ever-available antiboar marksmen after a few boars dug up the soccer field.

From time to time this dispatching of boars by rifle shot raises some protest. A few weeks ago, Mr. Franusch said, in the middle of the day, marksmen killed a dozen boars loitering near Clayallee, a broad, leafy boulevard that runs past the American Consulate in the western part of town.

When newspapers reported the slaughter, hundreds of Berliners called the Berlin Forestry Office to ask if there was not some other way of dealing with the problem � moving the boars back to the forest, for example, or putting birth control substances into acorns, anything but doing away with them altogether.

Yeah, the buggers have been there for years. Neat until they dig up your garden - or little Fido for that matter
- mike

It is not only in Berlin. There are some more towns which do have the same problem.
The Anti hunting guys are always crying that we kill everything. That is the best proove that this is not true.

Foxes, badger, mink rats, racoon and some more are usual to have in the villages or towns.

Best regards

It's not restricted to Europe. The Eastern U.S. is plagued with whitetail deer that ravage rose bushes, and in California the black bear have developed a taste for avocados and hot tubs. When they start criticizing the wine, I quit!

There's something missing in the logic of the story. They say that since the boars are wild they do not belong to anyone and no government agency is responsible to pay for damage. However if you shoot one and want the meat you have to pay the city of Berlin. And racoons in Berlin ,weird !They'll never get rid of them.

I only whish we had a similar problem here in Iceland. The huntable fauna is too small

Cool. Big Bore Boar Hunt on the Kur-dam.

A few teller mines should protect the gardens. sprinkle a few acorns on top, sit back & watch.

Used to run into them on exercise in the Grunewald, called them Grunypigs. Some of them were VERY big indeed.

Das ist schweineri

Imagine what a great pig hunts one could have in the parks and forrest near Berlin. I wonder if they are looking to hire more forest managers

/ JOHAN

Like mete asked, how can the city of Berlin charge for the meat and not claim responsibility for the damage inflicted by the pigs?
That is just WRONG.
Otherwise sounds like a good place for a bow hunt.

God bless
Shawn