A separate body, the Environmental Agency (Keskkonnaagentuur), is responsible for setting culling quotas, and in the case of the current boar population, that agency has not set high enough levels, the board said.

Nearly 9,000 pigs from farms in Estonia have been culled in the past month, directly as a result of the current ASF outbreak.

Arvo Viltrop, tenured professor of veterinary bio- and population medicine at the Estonian University of Life Sciences (Maaülikool) put the optimal boar population in Estonia at around a quarter of the current level, noting that hunters' motivation levels are also a factor.

"For the hunter, hunting becomes economically unacceptable. He goes into the forest to hunt but gets nothing. Time and money are spent, but no result," he said. This was the case after the last ASF outbreak in Estonia two years ago, but boar numbers have rallied since then.

Hunters' motivation should also return in line with that, the professor said. One way of providing motivation to hunters, Viltrop added, could lie in providing financial incentives. "In Poland, for example, they gave state-paid rangers who carry out intensified wild boar hunting. That is one option."

Boar populations "go in waves. When the population drops very low, motivation disappears. When the population grows, hunters' motivation returns – but by then the disease is already spreading," Viltrop said.

Inge Saavo, head of the southern region of state agency the Agricultural and Food Board (PTA), concurred.

"The hunting associations must discuss the size of this population. They are the ones managing the number of wild boars in the forest," she said.

Executive director of the national hunters' association (Eesti jahimeeste selts) Tõnis Korts said the link between a low wild boar population and a lower risk of ASF spread is well known. However, hunters are confined to culling quotas set by the Environmental Board, he added, meaning it is not true to state that members are hunting boar too little at this stage. "Perhaps hunting should be more targeted to areas where the disease is spreading; to intensify hunting in buffer zones. We have ideas on how to proceed. Certainly, there are hunting areas where the quota should be increased, and also areas where quotas could be different (ie. reduced – ed.)," Korts said.

Tanel Türna, head of the Environmental Board's hunting and aquatic life bureau, said the Environmental Agency's recommendations are made with the "wisdom of hindsight," and are issued "based on the best available information. In retrospect, one can say that yes, more could have been recommended and more could have been hunted."

The state is in any case requiring culls of domesticated pigs at farms where ASF has been detected.

By the end of this week, the Kisla pig farm in Tartu County needs to be divested of all 6,000 of its livestock, according to the Agricultural and Food Board (PTA). The entire stock will be culled, as was the case at the end of June in Mulgi municipality, Viljandi County, where 2,700 animals at the Tempo pig farm were slaughtered.

Saavo noted that no violations of biosecurity regulations have been found either at the Kisla and Tempo farms, nor at the farms affected by ASF two years ago.

The Environmental Board sets annual wild boar culls, based on the recommendation of the Environmental Agency

The quota last hunting season was 15,000; Türna noted his authority thinks the figure should be 18,000 this year.

"This should reduce the number of boar to a sufficiently low level to reduce the risk of the disease. The next complex issue is to monitor and ensure that hunters actually meet the determined quotas," Türna said.

Türna noted that the Environmental Agency should have recommended hunting more wild boars last year and noted that the Environmental Board can, when setting the hunting quota, also state that it is not satisfied with the recommendation and would like to enhance it.

Viltrop explained that in Germany, for instance, forests are fenced off, with more intensive culling outside the fenced areas, to prevent wild boar from leaving the fenced zones. This keeps ASF at bay, he said. At the same time, a lack of resources makes this an unrealistic policy for Estonia, Viltrop went on.

ASF is not harmful to humans, but pig stocks at farms where infection outbreaks are detected must under the rules be culled. Domestic pigs are closely related to and descended from wild boar, a very numerous species worldwide and which has several sub-species. The nationwide population of wild boar in Estonia has been estimated at over 20,000 since 2007.

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