Mijas awards a contract for the live capture of wild boars

The City Council of Mijas has awarded a contract for the live capture of wild boars and feral pigs valued at 150,000 euros, a measure taken with the aim of "controlling the population" of these animals and "maintaining a balance," according to Marco Cortés, the Environmental Councilor.

The announcement comes days after images circulated on social media showing a group of wild boars, including piglets and adults, roaming part of a shopping center in Fuengirola, in addition to complaints from residents of the Miramar urbanization about finding these animals loitering in the area on several occasions.

The contract was awarded on February 4th to the company Adda ops, as part of a bidding process that began in August of the previous year and received 3 offers, with this being the “best evaluated due to a unique discount percentage of 27.15% on the unit prices for monthly maintenance and effective control operations,” according to the announcement published on the Public Sector Procurement Platform.

Specifically, the contract involves “the service of live capture of wild boars, feral pigs, Vietnamese pigs and their hybrids, for damage control and risk management using trapping devices on non-hunting grounds in the municipality of Mijas,” according to the publication.

The contract is governed by “the provisions set out in the Resolution of June 2, 2023, jointly issued by the General Directorate of Agricultural Production and Livestock and the General Directorate of Forest Policy and Biodiversity, which declares a temporary emergency hunting area due to sanitary risks and damages caused by wild boars and hybrid pigs in the autonomous community of Andalusia”.

Thus, the service has been awarded with “a base bidding budget of 150,000 euros” and the execution period ends on December 31, 2025, with the contract to be formalized between February 25 and March 3, 2025, according to the announcement.

Cortés emphasized that the “contract for the capture of feral pigs” is carried out with the goal of “controlling the population, which has grown tremendously during this time” and “maintaining a balance”. This has led to “these animals coming down to urban areas and parks, highways, or the city center, roaming from Calahonda to the lighthouse,” he mentioned.

The councilor pointed out that the City Council has had to “react and try to control the population” of wild boars and feral pigs, after receiving “much insecurity and many citizen complaints about these animals”.

In this regard, he highlighted that many residents “feel harassed when going to throw away the trash” or “when they go to a park and these animals are present, mothers feel afraid for their children”.

Awareness Campaign

Furthermore, the councilor mentioned the awareness campaign launched by the City Council to prevent “feeding these types of animals,” emphasizing that this alters their natural behavior of fending for themselves by trying to “domesticate them”. He also insisted that this causes them “not to leave urban areas”.

As highlighted, according to warnings from the College of Veterinarians of Malaga, these specimens that “come down” from the Sierra to urban centers “do not undergo any veterinary control”, nor are they “dewormed or vaccinated” as they are not “domestic”, hence “they could be potential carriers of diseases”.

The City Council of Mijas has also been the first to impose a fine on a resident for feeding wild boars, a practice that has resulted in a penalty of 250 euros and that could reach up to 750, as recently reported.