Wild boars in Haifa: “The problem is not the responsibility of the municipality”

Exchange of accusations between the Haifa Municipality and the Nature and Parks Authority regarding the treatment of the wild boar problem in Haifa: Tonight (Tuesday), the Haifa City Council held, for the first time, a discussion on the issue of the population explosion of wild boars, which recently raided large areas of the city. At the beginning of the hearing, the municipal auditor’s report was presented regarding the treatment of the pig phenomenon in the city, which covered the issue until the end of 2020. Representatives of the Nature and Parks Authority were invited to the meeting, but did not arrive after refusing to coordinate the topics of discussion with them in advance.

During the city council meeting, which was at times tumultuous, several residents demonstrated outside the city hall in the Hadar neighborhood in protest of what they defined as the municipality’s incompetence. “Our demand that the mayor wake up, stop placing responsibility on others and deal with the most serious crisis in the city herself. No mayor in Israel and in Haifa has removed the responsibility for leading such a serious urban crisis.” “The responsibility for the wild boars has always been in the hands of RTG (Nature and Parks Authority), and it is time for them to start taking responsibility,” the mayor wrote in a Facebook post. “I will not endanger the city’s residents, and the municipality itself, by illegal hunting (which also Proved ineffective) with live fire adjacent to private homes, without full and written permits from all relevant authorities. Haifa does not need and will not be the hunting contractor of RTG. Haifa will not move live pigs without permits, and certainly not for NIS 10,000 per pig and pig as required by RTG. Just as the Haifa municipality, or any other local authority, does not have authority in areas such as the criminal world, protection against missiles in times of war or extinguishing fires – so too the problem of wildlife is not in its hands. “Klish-Rotem argued that while the municipality works That aggravation, the Nature and Parks Authority poses obstacles.

Haifa Municipality Director General Ohad Segev spoke about the activity against wild boars in the city: “RTG’s assistance was only in an inspector who would give reports to feeders, at a cost of NIS 400,000. Follow him. Copying anesthesia endangers the life of anyone who deals with it. When a pig was put to sleep and he went wild, even then they did not give a police permit to shoot him. I will not give anyone permission to open fire without having a legal permit for it. “It makes sense for the RTG to get into the thickness of the beam and not throw everything on our shoulders.”

The auditor’s report, Ofer Tal, shows that during the years 2013 to 2019, several hundred pigs were shot every year. The peak year was 2018 when 437 pigs were shot. The auditor noted that the dilution (killing of the animals by hunters) was not carried out properly according to the procedures. Not in the permits that were supposed to be signed by the Nature and Parks Authority, nor in the permits issued by the police. Among other things, the permit was signed, which allows shooting within 500 meters of the houses of the settlement, by the hunter himself and not by the elements in the Nature and Parks Authority or the police.

The dilution was completely stopped in August 2019 and since then the rate of complaints has increased and increased. In 2020, a record number was recorded, of 3,575 complaints (compared to 1301 in 2017 which was the low year in the number of complaints). The mayor claimed to the comptroller that this was not necessarily a larger number of pigs, and blamed, among other things, the publication of the articles on the subject. “It is not possible to deduce from the number of inquiries about the number of pigs, but about the dissatisfaction of the residents. It is possible that there are many inquiries about those pigs, and it must be taken into account that public opinion and media articles can encourage residents to complain.”

According to the comptroller, at the council meeting today, with the completion of the dilution operations, alternative intensive activity was needed, which did not happen. “What was needed in my opinion is other very large-scale operations to fill the void. And it was not carried out. Only in the second half of 2020. No operations were carried out and if they were carried out they were low-scale and that may be what caused the situation we are in today.”

He noted that the hedging issue started as a pilot in which 10 transit points were fenced off, but the pilot did not continue. “Although the issue of fencing against wild boars will be budgeted in 2020 at NIS 1.5 million as part of the budget ‘Fencing and care of wild boars’. Only on June 3, 2020, only one permit was received for the sum of NIS 150,000 from this budget. Three gardens were fenced off. ” The Haifa Municipality Comptroller also noted that the Authority does not yet have a plan to replace the vegetation, nor is there any enforcement regarding pig feeders. “In 2018-2019 only 250 reports were given.” According to him, the issue on the agenda, the variety of options is known, the budget set has not been used properly. Intensive activity began in the second half of 2020, which may have been a place to start earlier.

The director general of the Nature and Parks Authority, Shaul Goldstein, responded to the mayor’s claims: “The pig phenomenon in Haifa is a known problem. Unfortunately, the mayor of Haifa withdrew from the understandings that were in front of me and in front of the PA. The authority has prepared a detailed plan on how to deal with the swine crisis even though we know very well that the interface between man and wildlife is an interface that has always existed since the dawn of history. Unfortunately, the mayor did not take responsibility and in Haifa they continue to feed the pigs, pet them and call them, the residents of the city continue to throw food to the cats that the pigs also eat. At the end of the process, if these things are not addressed, the cure will not come to the residents of Haifa. We reach out and are willing to cooperate, like any other authority we give the professional advice. “RTG is a regulator and does not enter every city and town and handles the crises that exist in it. We call on the mayor of Haifa to take responsibility in front of us and deal with the crisis together.”

The Nature and Parks Authority also stated: “The phenomenon of wildlife roaming, including wild boars in cities and towns, including Haifa, stems from the wildlife’s search for available and obtainable food originating from human waste. The Nature and Parks Authority does not operate in the municipal area On the subject, including providing professional instructions to the authorities on how to reduce this phenomenon, among other things by sanitation measures such as: ensuring the cleanliness of the settlement area, closing garbage cans, frequent garbage removal, watering controlled gardens with emphasis on morning hours, and banning animal feeding by residents including leaving “Food and water jars on the sidewalks. In addition, it is proposed to examine additional measures, such as physical demarcation between the city area and the nearby open areas, as well as a spot dilution of the wild boar population. This is also done with the Haifa municipality.”

The RTG further said that “when a mayor chooses not to dilute the wild boar in the places that need to be treated, he is required to take full care of the person who feeds, interacts with the wild animal, to fence public gardens. Actions that cause pigs to become dependent on humans for food. Responsible public behavior of the first order is required. The mayor’s decision not to dilute pigs requires the municipality to handle the city’s conduct differently. Unfortunately, the policy in which the mayor chose to address the issue of pigs caused the problem to expand. The Nature and Parks Authority has proposed formulating a joint professional plan for dealing with the problem alongside the appointment of a designated inspector. The municipality has announced that it is not interested in this and has hired its own professionals. The authority even issued permits for every request that came from the municipality. The authority will be happy to implement the action plan recommended by the mayor and its professional staff and together address the pig problem if the mayor agrees to act in accordance with the professional recommendations proposed by the authority. ”