The phenomenon of pigs in Haifa concerns and even bothers many residents throughout the city of Haifa. One of the most influential bodies on the subject of wildlife treatment in Israel is RTG (The Nature and Parks Authority). This is the organization that encompasses the activities related to wildlife in Israel.
Many among the public ask what RTG's position actually is and whether this authority is involved in what is happening in Haifa.
Therefore, in order to better understand RTG's position, I talked extensively with Uri Neve, Deputy Director of the Science Division at RTG. Uri has been working at the Nature and Parks Authority since 1994 and is very familiar with everything related to the pig phenomenon in Haifa.
It is important for me to thank, first, Uri, for the extensive interview and the transparency and sharing of information with the Haifa public.
What relationship exists between RTG and Haifa Municipality regarding the issue of pigs?
Haifa Municipality works with us in full cooperation and coordination.
There are professional teams shared by the Haifa Municipality, the University of Haifa and RTG that work on an ongoing basis in this matter.
What is the division of responsibility and what is the definition of authority between the RTG and the municipality in the areas of the municipal area?
The Municipality of Haifa is responsible for what happens within its municipal area, therefore all activity related to the enforcement of the Wildlife Law is under the authority and care of the Municipality of Haifa.
In Israel there is Wildlife Protection Act, which is also relevant within the cities. In short: anyone who wants to harm a wild animal or affect a wild animal in any way must, according to the law, obtain a permit from the Ministry of Tourism.
Feeding a wild animal also requires obtaining a permit.
Therefore, whoever feeds a wild boar is actually breaking the law, since it is a protected wild animal. The law allows for fining wild animal feeders and even provides for the possibility of prison sentences for wild animal feeders.
Within the boundaries of the city, the authority to issue fines and enforcement rests with the inspectors of the municipal authority. RTG personnel do not operate within the urban area of Haifa.
Feeding a wild animal causes damage to the animal's natural behavior.
Once humans feed the animals, their behavior is influenced by the food and the connection the animals recognize between humans and food.
Since the animal changes its natural behavior, in fact, in our professional opinion, it is an injury to the animal itself and therefore it is prohibited, according to the law.
Pigs eat cat food on Edmond Peleg Street in Haifa
Is this topic of pig-neighborhood interface a new topic in the world or should it be researched to gain new insights into solving the problem?
This issue is known all over the world. There are a number of regions in the world where there has been confrontation for many years, among them: Berlin, Barcelona and several regions in the USA.
In Haifa we are studying the behavior of some of the pigs in the neighborhoods and in the nearby wadis.
We investigate the main points of friction between the pigs and the population as well as the reasons why the pigs enter the city.
There are several reasons that encourage the interface between the pigs and the residents, mainly:
Natural and wooded areas bordering neighborhoods and house yards.
Residents' behavior: direct feeding of wild boars, indirect feeding of pigs with food intended for cats, throwing food into unclosed bins, yards bordering natural areas, which are not fenced at the interface with the natural area.
Within the scope of the city of Haifa there are dozens of kilometers of city-nature interface. What do you actually suggest regarding fencing?
The problem of the nature-city interface is not a solvable problem on a black-and-white level.
The living spaces of the animals in Israel in general and in Haifa in particular have shrunk, therefore today we are trying to reduce the phenomenon of wild animals entering the urban area, with the understanding that it cannot be completely eliminated.
Pigs have always been in Haifa and in recent years there are more. In the past they were more afraid and avoided entering the city and today they have increased their activity inside the city.
It is important to understand that the pigs are reacting to human activity, they No initiators. They mainly react to the changes that we, humans, initiate and among them:
► Construction in wadis - from there they are pushed to the city.
► Sewage discharge into the Wadi - they have water so they thrive.
► Feeding pigs - made them less afraid.
The joint professional teams characterize the problem in Haifa as precisely as necessary and together we will try to reduce the phenomenon as much as possible.
What is the position of the Nature and Parks Authority regarding the grazing of pigs in urban area neighborhoods?
A wild animal is an animal that does not have the nature to live among humans. The natural behavior of the wild animal is adapted to nature. Therefore, as a general rule, a wild boar - it is better for it to live in a bar, in its natural territory.
Despite this, in 2020, when the natural areas in Israel are very limited, it is rare to find wild animals that are not affected by humans and respond to human actions.
Is there a risk to the public as a result of the presence of the pigs in the neighborhoods?
The people actively feeding the pigs are the ones putting the public at risk, because they associate, in the minds of the pigs, the presence of man with food.
Our fear is that a pig will see a person not feeding it and it will try to "ask" for this food. Communication between a pig and a human is a very disturbed communication. He does not know how to "ask for food" and therefore feeding wild boars endangers the public. Feeding is dangerous in that it exposes a person to the close presence of a pig. In such a situation, a pig, which is a large animal, can in a certain situation cause a person to be injured.
Pigs don't have a tendency to chase people, but in such a situation of a connection between food and man, they may endanger humans.
The pig feeders may eventually cause harm to the pigs, because when the humans eventually lose patience - the pigs will be the ones who will be harmed.
Another group of people who endanger the public are the street cat feeders, at feeding points where pigs also have access. Feeding is dangerous when pigs come to eat the cats' food and get used to the presence of humans, a connection between humans and food is created in the pigs' minds.
Is there exposure to rabies among pigs and what happens to a pig infected with rabies behaviorally?
We are not aware of any cases of rabies in wild boars.
Will a solution be found for Haifa? What are you promoting these days?
I'm sure a solution to the problem will be found!
Feeding pigs and cats on the street: The first solution depends on the Haifa public - stop feeding on the street, at points accessible to pigs - immediately!
Feeding cats must be handled in a smart way, that is, without the food reaching the pigs as well. The feeders are part of the problem and they must take part in the solution.
Passage fencing: Some of the places must be fenced off, so that the pigs will have to make great efforts to be able to move into the city and then they will rarely enter the neighborhood and gardens.
Fencing as a condition for approval of a construction plan for new buildings: We encourage planning and construction processes, according to which a permit will be given to build a house on the border of a wadi, which will be conditional on fencing against wild animals.
An experiment to provide contraceptives to females and males: This is an action that is not well known in the world and the research on this topic is really in its infancy, so this topic should be treated with skepticism, at this stage.
In places where there are certain wadis, which are cut off from an open surface, you can try to act in this direction. I emphasize that this is a very, very, very preliminary experiment.
The act of providing contraceptives is done by shooting an arrow with a hormone that suppresses hormonal activity.
What about the capture and transfer of pigs to another location?
Trapping and copying from one place to another is equivalent to killing, from our point of view, because if we move pigs to a new place, they negatively affect the fabric of life in that place, that is, either the pig we brought to the new place will starve and die or it will push out an existing population and kill it.
In the professional parlance this is called a "niche", which means that each area cell is suitable anyway for the animals that are there and therefore are already there. In most cases, an area cell (niche) cannot contain an additional group of animals that is imported to it.
What is RTG's position regarding the dilution of pigs in firing:
We thin out shooting in certain places in Israel, in accordance with the law on the protection of wild animals.
We operate this way mainly in agricultural areas, where there is an overabundance, based on the abundance of food that agriculture provides.
In Israel there are no predators that know how to hunt pigs naturally (like lions or tigers). That is why we are forced to thin out the shooting in certain areas.
Within the boundaries of the city of Haifa we do not dilute the shooting, because we adapt our methods of operation to the position of the authority and the mayor.
In the past there was a shooting of pigs in Haifa and the problem was not completely resolved.
From our point of view, as long as the municipality of Haifa works to continuously address the problem and even recently adopted an ecological one, we will support the policy led by the municipality and assist it in dealing with the problem. We don't sit and wait for something to happen.
A few words of your conclusion for the reading public here:
Wild animals have increased their activity in all cities in Israel. Here are some examples, just in case:
► In Be'er Sheva - hypocrites
► In Tel Aviv - Tanim
► In Rishon Lezion - foxes and pigs
► In memory of Jacob - pigs
► In Haifa - pigs
I want to say "breathe" To the municipality of Haifa and to Dr. Yair Weiss - the municipal veterinarian, who deals with the phenomenon in a very intelligent way. He has a loyal and serious partner from the public of animal lovers - Avital Ben Nun. The mayor, Dr. Einat Kalish-Rotem, also takes the phenomenon seriously and works to deal with it .
If the residents take part in the effort and deal with the situation, in the ways I mentioned - it will be better for everyone - both the residents and the pigs.
And in the meantime: if someone is walking down the street and sees a pig, any kind of communication with it should be avoided. Do not feed, do not caress and do not throw stones. "Social distancing" must be maintained.
There are pigs, there are more jobs in the public service
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The smartest answer is his well-being - the pigs provide another livelihood for the employees of the public service!
The pigs are a sign of a real lack of attention to the vision of the city!
Why was such a department established? ! ? ! ? !
Hello Haifaim!! Once again I bring the problem of pigs to the agenda and this after I was attacked this evening in the Nosh neighborhood at 10:45 by a pig the size of a bull that did not hesitate and started running in my direction. We must get rid of this nuisance immediately. I call on the people of Haifa that if the matter is not resolved immediately, they should consider stopping paying the high and excessive property tax in the face of the municipality's abject helplessness and helplessness in removing waste, maintaining the city, repairing roads and addressing the issue of street lighting and, above all, the problem of pigs that is bothering all the neighborhoods of the city. That everyone put up posts on the municipality's Facebook pages, protest and call for actions………………..
The authorities are supposed to decide what is the optimal number of pigs, and what is their desired living area/geographical limit....and everything is derived from this....the invasion of the pigs into Haifa is a failure of the responsible authority, if these simple things are not clear to you....the confusion will continue....at the moment the authorities are complicit in spreading disinformation, and inciting The discussion is for marginal things....if the residents don't wake up, the authorities won't reset either....it's quite comfortable for them to function in a promiscuous environment.
The representative of the Nature and Parks Authority says in the clearest way that thinning was done in the past, but it was stopped because of a cliché position. He also says that the problem has not been completely solved...that is, it has been solved satisfactorily. The Authority will not do anything against Klish's position. Until the elections in which she will probably be replaced, nothing good will happen
The Nature and Parks Authority, and not the municipality, is the professional body that is supposed to decide where the pigs are supposed to live, and act accordingly....the authority did not do its job, ignored its responsibility, and left it to the pigs to decide what they would do. If the authority had done its job, there would be no pigs in Haifa, and the issue would not belong to the municipality at all.
The place of wild animals in nature and as there are wild animals in Carmel, we need to create such a place for the pigs and move them there and give them food there.
That's right, the place of wild animals in the wild. You don't need to move them, but don't let them get to a place where they don't belong, and you don't need to feed them.
Kalish, among the other damages she caused to the city, stopped thinning the pigs, but covers herself with a variety of covers..
When there is a fatal encounter, she will lay the blame on RTG, on Yael Olek (the new procurement), on the cats, on the garbage cans, on the contractors who build in the city, and on the residents who multiply!
Shoot pigs without hesitation. After the first five pigs that find shots, they will find solutions to copy them. Just like that, letting them breed is a cowardly attempt to deal with a problem. As is customary in the land of our ancestors, one must first bring about a crisis, an event with many victims among the pigs, only then will they begin to take serious action to eradicate the pig farm.
right
Only in the bottom line, everything is a function of money...
And the one who understands will understand...
I live around cats. At the end of the cats' meal, usually pigs, jackals and sometimes porcupines and hedgehogs arrive.
It is indeed necessary to feed in small portions.
Secondly - Haifa is not clean, to put it mildly, residents often throw garbage next to the trash. Also, the municipality should take care of more bins and that the existing bins be fastened to the walls. You often see cans on the side of the road, pigs turn them over and eat their hearts out.
Correct handling of bins is the municipality's responsibility, and it is not a N e s e
My name is Dr. Haim Berger, I deal with animal behavior. Wild boars have already attacked people and injured people in Haifa and Israel. There is no need to wait for a disaster to happen and things need to be done immediately. Wild boars have gone through a process of losing their fear of humans. This is a reversible process - they can be taught that humans are not nice. There are non-lethal methods such as shooting dispersal devices or pepper balls which burn them very badly. Pig harassment teams should be sent out at different times of the day. It works very quickly. This is in addition to reducing food sources such as garbage in a bin that is easy to turn over. Both actions Together they brought a huge change.
A nice official who repeats a mantra and does not provide a real solution.
Let's see how he will react when a pig chases his grandson who is walking with food in hand.
I think we should organize a residents' demonstration in front of the city of Haifa and invite the media. Hope this helps. Otherwise there is no hope.
These animals stink and foul my street. They stand on two legs and open the lid of the bin with their snout and pull garbage bags out of the bin, there is no feeding them and they still come in droves. In addition, in the middle of the night they scream in the street and disturb sleep. They have no natural enemies and their reproduction rate is high, each litter has between 8 and 12 puppies. They should be shot!!!
In Haifa, the mayor of a crazy city has done zero, one hundred percent madness
The phenomenon of pigs is not only in Haifa, in Dalit al-Kakmel people have been complaining about this phenomenon for many years. The pigs roam between the houses, in the gardens, in the orchards and destroy everything. We need a solution to this phenomenon. Pigs are neither pets nor friends of man, and can harm us and our children. And today we see them also in the afternoon and not only at night.
Due to this long discussion there was no answer except to blame the residents. If RTG thinks that the number of residents in Haifa needs to be thinned out - let them say.
The Haifa municipality's fencing is worth the sacrifices because it surrounds private gardens. If the pig doesn't get through a city fence, it will go through a private garden.
What nonsense, Kalish does not work at all to eradicate the phenomenon, there is only cosmetic activity:
Signs and really, really some fences that make the pigs laugh.
There is no practical solution for the pigs in the article, therefore the residents of Haifa must take the law into their own hands where the pig will harm us and our children, we will be harmed by it and the one who understands will understand. Whoever did not understand should consult the foreign workers from Thailand and they will teach him how to drive.
You scratched us. All the answers are, in the bottom line, nothing and nothing you do so that the situation here will improve. It will improve for the benefit of the resident.
In one word, our problem is the residents.
Kinda funny but like that.
Stop feeding cats, throw the food in the trash, etc. I'm sorry, but there are pictures of returns uprooting roots that only Boogie can uproot and talking to us about closing the trash? If it is closed, would the problem of natural growth be solved? After all, the aforementioned scholar admits that they do not have natural dilution - so someone has to do the reporting.
The part that made me laugh the most was "they've already been shot but it didn't help". indeed? Were they resurrected or just died too little too late? Give permission for the shooting and the reduction of 90 percent and I promise that we will not see them in Haifa, at most some frightened poor thing once every six months.
So how come shooting doesn't help?
Enough to have a good time!
In the end it will cost someone's life and who will take the responsibility from the cat eaters, the garbage throwers or those who hold the horns of the altar by excessive banging? It's either us or them.
Don't stop feeding cats. They should be given food in small portions (50-100 grams per cat). Do not pour a kilogram of food in one place, because then there will be a lot of food left in one place (cats will almost always not eat the whole portion you give them, they will always leave some).
The Nature Authority is portrayed as a puppet of the Haifa municipality that adapts itself to the teachings of the head of the local authority. In fact, the responsibility is placed on the residents who "don't feed cats", where the danger comes from... disappointing and unprofessional
Fascinating interview Uri Neve. Well done to you.
Until the inevitable happens due to this unnatural friction, the march of folly will continue. Why wait in Haifa for an accident between pigs and vehicles? For an outbreak of diseases (and not just rabies)? To attack a pig due to a sense of threat to the puppies?
Rabies in pigs? The chance is almost zero. To this day, no such case has been recorded in Israel (check for yourself on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture!), and it is doubtful that such a case has ever been recorded in the world. In order for a pig to get rabies, it has to be attacked by a carrier of rabies. In Israel, the natural carriers of rabies are mainly jackals and foxes (and in the Golan Heights, wolves as well). These animals do not attack wild pigs.
Why do different cats regurgitate? Why is the ratio not equal? Because the pig doesn't have a lobby? Both need to be treated in the form of population thinning for the sake of the local animals
Leave the cats alone.
What are "local animals", rats?
humans…
1. Cat - an animal that reaches a weight of about 5-7 kg. A wild boar (adult male) can reach 450 kg. Female around a quarter ton.
2. Have you heard of someone being killed by an attack from a domestic cat?
3. A domestic cat, as the name suggests, is a domesticated animal. He knows how to communicate with some humans, and lives near us with considerable success. A wild boar as its name is a wild animal, just like a wolf, mongoose, rock hare, and more. These creatures have no ability to communicate with us effectively. Therefore, the interface between a human and a pig can be very dangerous, and the interface between a human and a cat is much less dangerous.
A cat is not a wild animal and cats undergo sterilization as part of the sterilization of homeless cats, a project of the municipalities in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture. go learn
damage fear damage fear…
Why suffer?
In the article:
"Capturing and copying from one place to another is equivalent to killing, as far as we are concerned, because if we move pigs to a new place, they negatively affect the fabric of life in that place, that is, either the pig we brought to the new place will starve and die or it will crowd out an existing population and kill it."
Conclusion: We, the residents of the city, will leave this city and leave it to the pigs...
The response to the shooting is disappointing. They didn't ask you what the Haifa municipality's position was, but what Retag's position was on the shooting.