Wild boar visitor stop: Reason for conversion on the Waldau unveiled!

Wild boar visitor stop: Reason for conversion on the Waldau unveiled!

The show enclosure on the Waldau presents its wild boar population before a fundamental change. Until autumn 2025, no wild boars will no longer be seen in the facility, since a conversion of the site has become necessary. This is reported by the city of Bonn, which has decided to measure the measure due to recurring, permanent worm diseases. These occurred because the terrain has been steady wet for over a year and does not dry. For health reasons, all eight wild boars had to be killed to maintain animal welfare.

The city is now planning to prepare the soil professionally and optimize the renovation of the enclosure. The redesign of the site, which started last year, stipulates that wild boars can be in two separated areas in the future. One advantage of this system is that the unused part can dry and regenerate.

renovation measures and future plans

As part of the renovation, a feed platform and an additional shelter for the animals are created. In autumn 2025, the city plans to take over wild boar from other gates to build a new stock. The red and fallow deer enclosure nearby remains unaffected by these renovation work, so that the animals can continue to be visited and fed there.

The decline in pigs in Germany has far -reaching consequences for the entire industry. Jörn Ehlers, Vice President of Lower Saxony Landesachs, is critical of the federal political endeavors to improve the keeping conditions for pigs. He notes that the animal welfare initiative is already taking a large market share and forced growth in higher levels of husbandry is not necessary. Instead, market demand should decide on future investments in the sector.

pig in Germany and Europe

In a comparison of animal husbandry practices, it becomes clear that the stocks in Germany decrease continuously in higher animal welfare requirements. In contrast, the number of pigs in southern European countries increases with less regulation. Ehlers therefore calls for a uniform European level in animal husbandry to adjust the different standards and minimize problems.

The price development in the pig sector also shows a significant decline. The pig price in Germany fell by more than 7% compared to the previous year, but with an average of € 2.23/kg of slaughter weight of the second highest in the EU behind Austria. The general decline in pig production is alarming: from 53.4 million slaughtered pigs in 2020, the number fell to 44.1 million in 2023. However, forecasts for 2024 assume a slight increase to 44.4 million slaughtered pigs.

The breeding crops represent another worrying key figure. These have dropped from 2.3 million to 1.4 million in 2023 since 2008. In contrast to this, countries such as Spain have growth in the growth of the breeding crops from 2.3 million to 2.8 million in the same years.