Balancing Effectiveness and Ethics: Global Systematic Review of Sus scrofa Population Control Methods

The rapid global wild boar (Sus scrofa) population growth, coupled with increasing agricultural crop damage and disease transmission, suggests that current management and control strategies remain inadequate. Therefore, an international systematic review using the Web of Science database (WoS; Clarivate Analytics, Philadepphia, PA, USA), including a quantitative synthesis (119 studies up to 11 November 2025, containing 181 experiments) of population reduction methods was conducted, with an emphasis on evaluating their effectiveness, selectivity, and animal welfare aspects relating to wild boar and feral pigs. The results demonstrate a significant increase in research interest for population control methods in recent years. The highest average effectiveness was observed for aerial shooting (56.2% of the population per month), followed by poison baiting (27.6%) and trapping (6.0%). Aerial shooting appeared highly selective in the reviewed contexts; however, together with poison baiting, it is generally not permitted under current European conditions. Trapping (6.0%) and individual hunting (3.9%) offer moderate effectiveness but are highly context-dependent. From a welfare perspective, the analysis indicated that no significant difference in effectiveness was detected between studies that included welfare or stress assessment and those that did not, indicating that consideration of animal welfare does not reduce control efficiency. The study concluded that the analysis did not identify a single universally applicable solution that combines animal welfare considerations with high effectiveness, highlighting a significant research gap. This underscores the urgent need for an effective and publicly acceptable method of reducing wild boar populations, or for the development of strategies that appropriately integrate multiple approaches. However, the interpretation of results is limited by heterogeneity in study design and variability in reported data.