In Central Poland, in the conditions of ASF threat, in January 2019, a series of battues was organised to reduce the wild boar population. Hunting took place in a typical Central European landscape of a mosaic of vast arable fields, fallow lands, wet reed beds and small forests ranging in size from a few to several hundred hectares. Battues were used to reduce wild boar quickly and drastically in the area directly adjacent to places with confirmed cases of ASF. Hunting organised at the same time took place on 29 neighboring hunting grounds with a total area of 150,000 ha. Usually, a few hunters with beaters led areas from a few to over 100 ha. Due to limitations in the availability of a reliable wild boar census method, it was assumed that during subsequent battues, the number of recorded and/or shot wild boars would consistently decrease because of previous hunts. 563 drives with a total area of about 20,000 ha resulted in the shooting of only 69 wild boars out of 359 counted during hunting. It was found that neither the average wild boar density recorded in the drives, nor the average number of animals shot per 100 ha drives decreased significantly between successive battues. The level of exploitation of the population expressed by the % of group reduction, was at a low level of about 30%, which does not guarantee population reduction. Battues as a traditional hunting technique, but also invasive method are not an effective and should not be used to reduce the wild boar population under ASF threat conditions in rural landscapes. What’s more, their negative effects, e.g. dispersion of wild boar from areas covered by ASF, may outweigh the dubious benefits. The question about the effective and at the same time the least controversial method of wild boar depopulation from the social point of view remains open.

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