According to Spiegel, there are between 8,000 and 10,000 wild boars living in and around Berlin today; according to the Guardian, the Independent currently sells, at full price, 131,566 copies. That’s before they put the price up 25% to £1.00. The remaining 100,000 on its circulation figures are heavily discounted; I don’t know what happens to bulk prices when the cover price goes up.
Spiegel suggests that forty licensed hunters could bring the boar plague under control and stop them rootling up graveyards and running through gardens. There is a rather wonderful video (start about two thirds of the way through) of swine being hunted through a parking lot on the Spiegel site. I wonder if the Independent’s story will have the same ending.
I wonder if they’ll raise their freelance rates, too?
Why, how much do wild boars charge at the moment?
(an editor asks)
About twenty feet before they gore you.