EN
Wild boars (Sus scrofa) are regarded as food generalists and opportunists, whose great flexibility in food selection enables them to settle in various environments in a wide geographical area inhabited by them. Wild boars are perceived also as agricultural pests, since due to their dietary habits and a method of food seeking more crops are destroyed than consumed. In European habitat of wild boars, which undergoes long−term transformation, cultivated plants are an important ingredient of wild boars' summer and autumn diet. The issue of damage caused by wild boars has not been widely investigated in Poland so far. We analysed what is the crop damage caused by wild boars in summer and early autumn and whether the accessibility of crops (difference in crop acreage) determine the extent of this damage as well as we investigated if wild boars demonstrate preference to particular crops and how flexible they are while selecting food in the period of its oversupply. Research was based on 4215 reports on damage received by the Spała Forest District (C Poland) in 1999−2009 period. In analysed time wild boars caused damage in the wide range of crops. The greatest number of reports concerned damage in potato and in the fields seeded with cereals, while only a few – in beetroot, charlock, buckwheat and rape crops (tab. 1). Statistically significant and high correlation between the area of crops and the extent of damage was recorded. However, the damage was not serious enough to make the proportion of affected area grow bigger along with the area of crops (tab. 2). Although the analysed time span encompassed only 3 months, distinct differences in the extent of damage to cereal (excluding maize) and potato crops were marked. Crops affected the most in July included cereals. In August cereals were still the most affected crops, yet in September a radical change in wild boars' dietary preferences was noticed, while cereals distinctively came second after potatoes (fig. 2). In general, during summer and early autumn wild boars seeking food on fields damage a wide range of cultivated plants without a particular preference towards any species (evident opportunism in the food selection). The number of reported damage and its spatial extent is correlated with the area of particular species cultivation, yet the proportion of damaged area does not increase along with the crops area. Time, which wild boars can spend seeking for food out of the woods appears to be one of the limiting factors. Significant changes in the structure of damage in the short time span prove that wild boars are highly flexible in food selection, which can definitely facilitate their adaptation to new or changing environmental conditions.