Hunting emergency in the southeast of Madrid due to wild boar overpopulation

The regional government published the measure in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid, enabling exceptional controls such as drives, waits, hunts, traps, the use of thermal sights and even bow hunting in urban environments. The aim is to reduce the density of this species, whose proliferation has produced worrying figures: between 2012 and 2023, an average of 120 road accidents a year were recorded in the region, in addition to incidents involving pets and people.

The affected municipalities cover a wide corridor: from Rivas Vaciamadrid, Coslada and San Fernando de Henares to Arganda del Rey, Chinchón, Aranjuez, Valdemoro and Ciempozuelos, among others. There, encounters with wild boar have become an increasingly common scene.

However, environmental organisations question the official response and warn that the animals do not come to cities by choice, but because of habitat loss due to urban expansion, forest fragmentation and hunting pressure in their surroundings. Added to this, they point out, is the practice of breeding wild boar on hunting estates to increase the profitability of hunts, which would have artificially encouraged population growth. The debate, therefore, is focused not only on how to reduce the number of animals in the short term, but on how to address the deep-rooted causes that have driven this species to live ever closer to people.