Animal activists oppose using hunters with bows and arrows to cull wild boar in Malaga province

More than 20 animal rights groups have protested against killing wild boars with teams of archers, and are proposing more ethical ways to kill the animals that have become a problem throughout Malaga province. The groups - which protested last week - are in favour of sterilising the youngest animals and euthanasia for adults, "guaranteeing a death without suffering".

In a statement, the animal rights groups criticised "the agonising death for days of these animals that are only looking for food and water". They claimed that when a mother is slaughtered, all the females in the herds enter the reproductive phase, which, in their opinion, prolongs the problem.

Ecologists in Action Malaga attributed the issue of the increase in wild boars to urban growth; drought; lack of natural predators; their reproductive capacity, and the bad practice of feeding them: "A clear example is what has been happening every day for the last year on the border of the Montes de Malaga with Ciudad Jardin. There is an individual who, every morning, deposits a mountain of all kinds of food next to the forest, attracting herds of wild boar at night. By coming every night, the animals devastate the vegetation of the area in what is a protected natural area".

The group considered it "unethical" to shoot wild boars with bows and arrows. They proposed intensive monitoring to prevent them from being fed; green corridors through which these animals can move without causing damage; natural repellents, such as those made from wolf urine, or feeders mixed with sterilisers or contraceptives.