One dead after accident involving motorbike, vans and wild boar

One person on a motorbike has died after a road accident involving his vehicle, two vans and a wild boar in Cubelles, a coastal town 50km south of Barcelona.

The incident occurred on Thursday at 5.35am on C-32 highway, when the animal entered the road.

Emergency services including the police, firefighters and four ambulances arrived shortly after the accident, and C-32 was blocked for three hours northbound.

Catalonia has been going through an overpopulation of wild boars in recent years, with over 200,000 specimens estimated to live across the country, a figure that has more than doubled over the last decade despite hunting campaigns that kill around 70,000 per year.

In 2021, boars were involved in 3,000 traffic accidents. They've also become a nuisance to farmers, as these hungry animals have developed a taste for especially corn, barley and fruit crops.

Population control measures come in the form of hunting, sterilization campaigns and restricting their access to food.

Overpopulation 'drastic' reduction

Earlier this week, Catalan government representatives said they had "drastically" reduced the overpopulation of wild boars in the Girona area, where the density of such ungulates is higher, peaking at 17/km2.

This week the hunting season under the 'hunting emergency' scheme the Catalan government introduced came to an end, with over 5,400 wild boars hunted along the Gavarres and Rocacorba mountain ranges.

Authorities aimed for a 70% drop in density by hunting 6,700 such animals, and while these figures have not been reached, the government believes the campaign has been "a success."