Wild pig attacks plague S. Bengkulu rice farmers
Wild pig attacks plague S. Bengkulu rice farmers
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Groups of wild pigs are again destroying rice fields in South
Bengkulu, but unlike last year the regency does not have the
money to hire hunters to deal with the beasts, a local official
said on Thursday.
"Reports from farmers about damage done to their rice fields
by wild pigs continue to flow into our office," said the head of
the regency's agricultural office, Mukhlis Ibrahim, as quoted by
Antara.
There has not yet been an assessment of the damage, but he
said reports of wild pig attacks had been received from nearly
every rice-growing area of South Bengkulu, covering about 34,300
hectares.
He said the districts of Sukaraja, Seluma, Talo, Manna and
Seginim, located in the middle of the regency, had been the most
badly affected.
Wild pigs raid the rice fields mostly at night, eating
unhusked rice and destroying the crops by trampling on them.
During the day the animals retreat to the forests that
surround the rice fields, making it difficult to trap them.
"I have a rice field that was ready for harvesting, and it was
destroyed by wild pigs two weeks ago," said Bastoni, a farmer in
Sukaraja district.
Bastoni said he wanted the local administration to hire
hunters to kill the pigs, suggesting that hunters from other
provinces could also be recruited.
Last year, the regency dealt with the problem by paying people
Rp 10,000 (about US$1.12) for every wild pig they killed.
Since the hunters only had to turn in the snout for payment,
they also were able to sell the carcasses to zoos like Ragunan in
Jakarta and Taman Safari in Bogor, which used the pigs to feed
some of their animals.
Mukhlis said that over the course of 2002, the regency paid
out some Rp 200 million for the killing of about 20,000 wild
pigs.
"There were signs that the wild pig population declined after
we provided incentives to hunt the animals. But we ran out of
money fast because so many pigs were killed," he said.
The province of Bengkulu has its own pig hunting team, which
must cover the whole of the province on its own.