In the rural area where I live, near the Montserrat Natural Park, the wild boar and roe deer populations have long been out of control. Not long ago, wild boars killed the dog of a neighboring farmhouse—farmhouses, with their land, had never been fenced in—which confronted them. As I have repeatedly stated, hunters have been demonized by a population even more destructive than the wild boars: tourists. President Isla asks "Increase the capture of wild boar and reduce its negative impact," and Councilor Ordeig explained it this way: "You can say it in one language or another, in Girona, in Lleida, or in the Pyrenees: there are too many wild boar." We've had to put up with those who trample crops because they're taking wedding photos or Instagram videos, and they think hunters are just awful. It can happen that several of these hooligans, all of them caravanners, throw a party with high-proof alcohol, like vodka, in a vineyard. Which they ruin. And they're the ones who lecture us about whether humans are worse than wild boar, and so on and so forth.
However, for days now, the fields where I live haven't seen the wild boars that are a nightly presence. Their absence is very noticeable. Perhaps the plague epidemic is much worse than we think. Yesterday, the rural police found one dead, and it seems they're analyzing it. For now, those who drink in the streets can't get in; that's already too much of a change.
