Assessment of wild boar/domestic pig interactions through the use of questionnaires in Corsica. [015]

Purpose: Corsica is a French Mediterranean Island with traditional extensive pig farming where free ranging pigs often interact with an abundant and widespread population of wild boars and feral pigs. Hunters and small-scale farmers in rural areas are often privileged observers of interactions between wild and domestic pigs (IWDP) and open questionnaires are a valid and easy way to obtain qualitative and quantitative information on the nature, duration and seasonality of those interactions. Methods: A total of 86 persons (25 strict farmers, 20 strict hunters and 41 hunters and farmers) were interviewed in this manner in the 6 main production areas of Corsica to obtain qualitative and quantitative information on IWDP, which are suspected to be very common. A principal component analysis allowed to determine the variables linked with the IWDP. According to these first results, correlation matrices allowed to confirm and quantify these relations. Results IWDP were highly seasonal and concentrated in the autumn months (mostly November). Most commonly reported direct interactions were mating (60% of farmers), fighting (56% of farmers) and foraging together (36% of farmers). Some farming and hunting practices such as fencing or hunting beat seemed to have a significant negative influence on the occurrence of IWDP. Men driven interactions through the availability of carcass offal from hunted or slaughtered domestic and wild pigs were commonly reported by 68% of farmers and 90% of hunters. High IWDP induced farmers to castrate their females. Conclusions: The use of semi-structured interviews proved to be a very efficient and cheap method to gather information about the occurrence of natural and men driven interactions between domestic and wild pigs that can be used to design awareness campaigns or to identify hot spot areas for infectious disease transmission between domestic and wild animals. Relevance: IWDP remain widespread and represent a serious constraint in the contr