Managing the wild boar: perceptions from science, policy and society

Invasive species are high on political and scientific agendas. They disrupt local biodiversity by dominance of the ecosystem and disturb both human properties such as causing agricultural damages. Categorizing species as invasive has important implications in how they are treated: eradication, control or prevention to enter a certain area. Categorizing species, such as invasiveness, is common in wildlife management. Management procedures are executed according to the categories used. As such, to which category a species is appointed defines its management. How these categories are shaped and interpreted largely remains unclear. As well as, how these categories are subsequently effectuated in management procedures. In case of invasiveness, the origin, impact and behaviour of the animal itself matter in how it is perceived and consequently labelled in different practices. In this paper science, policy, management and society are selected as the practices involved in wildlife management. To understand how wildlife is categorized and implemented and unravel the most important processes and relations between the practices involved, a detailed study has been conducted on the wild boar at the Veluwe, a large nature area in the Netherlands. Central questions are: Which data are important to categorize and manage the wild boar and how are they collected and processed, which boundaries are set, where does it occur and where is it allowed to occur? The analysis (based on data from interviews, participant-observations, document analysis and focus-groups) shows the different ways of representation between and within the four practices, how this affected the categorization in the practices and by that the contested nature of boar management in the Netherlands, particularly at the Veluwe. To clarify the mutual relations between human and animal, this paper will offer an account of the processes involved in the meaning-making of the category of invasiveness in wildlife management, the reasons for using particularly representations of wildlife and the relations between management, science, policy and society to execute wildlife management in local practices. Keywords (4) : Invasiveness, wildlife management, wild boar, categorization