Of all the problems to have occured after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, a surge in wild boar is perhaps the least expected. This is no laughing matter for the locals, Gwynn Guilford reports:

• Deer and wild boar have become a nuisance across Japan. They both eat crops, and remove foliage from hills increasing the risk of landslides. A wild boar injured eight people in Hyogo last year.
• Total damages from wild animals are estimated at $200 million a year. But most hunters are men over the age of 60, and decreasing in number.
• Enter the women. Rules on gun ownership in Japan are very strict, and include alerting the police every time a shot is fired. But as boar and deer have no natural predators on the islands, hunting is considered necessary to act as a population control.
• The tagline of the Woman Hunters of Hakaido is ‘shoot and eat’. Bringing home fresh meat is a significant focus of the women hunting groups.

Click here for the full article. For the vegetarians amongst us, the article doesn’t mention any alternatives to shooting for limiting numbers. The mayor of Bungo-Ono (Southwest Japan), does though: wolves

Source: Quartz