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Two Models Estimated 13.5–19.6 Million Wild Boar Across Europe’s Core Range

Wild boars at the edge of Łódź, Poland
Conservation · Population & status

A continent-wide study of wild boar (Sus scrofa) combined two independent spatial models with comparable density estimates from 77 sites across Europe. One model used occurrence records and habitat suitability, while the other used hunting yields. Both were calibrated to local density data and produced estimates at a 2 × 2 km resolution.

Two models estimated 13.5–19.6 million wild boar

For the core European wild boar range, the occurrence-based model estimated about 13.5 million animals before the hunting season, while the hunting-yield model estimated about 19.6 million. Including countries where wild boar were absent or nearly absent, recently expanding or present only as small relict populations raised the respective Europe-wide totals to about 14.6 and 21.9 million. The authors regard the core-range estimates as more representative because those marginal or rapidly changing populations are harder to model reliably. These are not population estimates for one single calendar year. The researchers used data from periods before African swine fever was detected in each country or region, ranging from 2007 in Georgia to much later years in countries that remained free of the disease.

Map of Europe showing predicted wild boar density before African swine fever detection
Predicted wild boar density before African swine fever detection, based on the hunting-yield model calibrated with local density estimates. Figure 9 from Smith et al. (2026), European Journal of Wildlife Research, CC BY 4.0.

The two approaches produced broadly similar country-level estimates, although the occurrence model generally produced lower totals. Local density estimates used for calibration ranged from 0.18 to 74 wild boar per km². The hunting model showed a broad pattern of higher abundance in southern, western and central Europe and lower densities toward the north and northeast.

Country-level estimates require caution

The authors emphasise that estimates need to be interpreted country by country because wild boar distribution, hunting coverage, data quality and population history differ substantially. Expanding or relict populations can be especially difficult to model, and African swine fever itself can change both population size and hunting practices. The resulting maps are intended as a pre-ASF baseline for comparing disease impacts and management across Europe.

Sources and image credit

  1. Smith, G. C., Vicente, J., Croft, S., Warren, D., Blanco-Aguiar, J. A., Acevedo, P., Guerrasio, T., Scandura, M., Apollonio, M., Carvalho, J., Tinoco Torres, R., Pinto, N., Ares-Pereira, G., Fonseca, C., Keuling, O., Šprem, N., Gavashelishvili, A., Kerdikoshvili, N., Shakun, V., … Ferroglio, E. (2026). Mapping wild boar density across Europe: Combining spatial models and density estimates. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 72, 31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-026-02059-xPrimary peer-reviewed open-access article published 20 February 2026 under CC BY 4.0. Two independent models based on occurrence records and hunting yields were calibrated with density estimates from 77 ASF-free sites; the core-range pre-hunting estimates were about 13.5 million and 19.6 million wild boar.

Image: Jerzy Strzelecki — wild boars at the edge of Łódź, Poland; representative European wild boar image, not animals from the model calibration sites. Source: Wikimedia Commons. · CC BY 3.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ · Source

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