Barcelona is one of biggest city in Spain and even in Europe, with an estimate 4.7 Mil people living in its extended urban area, a top touristic destination at Mediterranean sea. What is less known to non-residents is that the woods around the city are home to a growing population of wild boars, which normally, as night approaches, they come out to feed, sometimes even reaching urban parks, round-abouts and other populated area! Apart from a boom in their population due to lack of natural predators, another reason of their presence at night in urban areas is one of the long term effect of humans hunting the wild boars. Very intelligent, the wild boars (as well as other animals), they learned the under cover of night they are less likely to meet humans, and the urban areas are complete safe heaven from shooting and hunting (with a bonus in food from uncovered garbage areas – not often the case in urban Barcelona).

While some of us enjoy their company, the phenomenon is quite an anomaly, a very adaptive animal multiplying above natural limits. Maybe it is time for authorities to think about re-introduction of natural predators, best suggestion would be the wolf and the lynx (due to its shy nature, it would do all possible to avoid contact with people, while its relative small size would guarantee no danger to humans in case of crossing paths)! That is surely a more efficient and ethical solution instead of hunting, which is the existing preferred method, due to obvious reasons: material profit for local authorities budgets and a few wild boar meat processing factories, which lobby for their own market survival!