Wolves could save Rome from the herds of wild boars that are invading the city

• Rome is invaded by boars weighing up to 200 pounds.
• Wolves could be the answer to culling the population and restoring a balance, wildlife experts believe
• Traces of wild boar remains are already appearing in the excrement.

The Italian capital, Rome, is invaded by wild boars. But instead of artificial solutions to the troublesome four-trotter invasion, nature could come to the rescue of harassed Romans thanks to the return of wolves to the outskirts of the city, experts told the Times.

The newspaper writes that there could be thousands of wild boars roaming the streets of Rome, scaring citizens and devouring piles of trash left on the roads.

For example, in 2021, a gang of boars surrounded a woman in a supermarket parking lot near Rome, forcing her to drop off her groceries which they then devoured, reports The Times.

But it’s not just their 200-pound stature and sharp tusks that are scaring locals, but the spike in cases of African swine fever affecting domestic pigs, which – while harmless to humans – pose a serious threat to the production of the famous Italian ham.

To cull the wild boar population, the Italian government’s anti-boar czar, Angelo Ferrari, told The Times that fences had been erected along the 42 miles of his Rome ring road.

“The plan is for everyone inside the ring road to get infected and die, even as we do a major depopulation outside of the city,” he said.

Then hunters in the Lazio region around Rome received additional permits to continue culling, with officials hoping 50,000 could be destroyed.

But this is not a definitive answer to Rome’s boar problem. Maurizio Gubbiotti, Rome’s parks and nature reserves manager, told The Times, “It’s very difficult to seal off so many ring roads.”

On top of that, environmental activists have denounced this approach by staging protests and tearing down fences.

Matteo Nardone/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

It is Italy’s growing wolf population that may provide an answer to the marauding boar.

In 2013, researchers found the first evidence of the presence of a wolf in the Castel di Guido reserve, inside the municipality of Rome, their first sighting in over a century, the Report of the European Wilderness Society.

Once barely traceable in Italy, the wolves are now returning, and Gubbiotti told The Times they are now being spotted on the outskirts of Rome, where they could feast on wild boars that retreat to wooded areas when not feeding not.

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He said traces of the remains of wild boars are already appearing in their droppings in the Insugherata nature reserve near Rome, proof that they are already contributing to the slaughter.

“The balance is coming,” Gubbiotti said.