Local authorities in a southwestern Chinese county have found a way to end the eight-year feud between some 100,000 farmers living in the area and a flock of state-protected wild boars: the farmers will have to move out.

Wushan County, alongside the Yangtze River and under the jurisdiction of Chongqing municipality, is home to over 10,000 wild boars traveling to at least one-third of the county's 566 villages, according to the Beijing Evening News this week.

Farmers say wild boars disappeared when the local forests were cut down for firewood during the 1960s, but the creatures returned when trees grew back.

The problem now is the boars have been harassing farmers, rooting up large quantities of potatoes with their powerful snouts while damaging other plants.

Local farmer Gong Changgui said he couldn’t make ends meet because boars dug up all his six mu (0.4 hectare) of corn and potatoes.

The farmers have used various means to protect themselves. They've set up bonfires and beat drums to frighten off the animals, but the boars never stay away long. Farmers report the creatures often relieve themselves on local scarecrows just to show who's in control.

Heated discussions on the farmer-beast controversy have been carried out in the local media and among government officials. Most of the farmers admitted that their leaving there seems to be the only answer.

The local government has finally decided: the 100,000 farmers living on the highlands of Wushan will move in the next few years to the lowlands, where living conditions are better anyway, with a better water supply and more convenient means of communication, to leave a greater room for boars to make a living.

( December 9, 2001)