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Wild boar numbers have risen to an estimated 150,000 in China's Zhejiang province, compared to about 29,000 a decade ago

BEIJING (AFP) - Farmers in eastern China are grappling with an explosion in the population of wild boars, who are destroying crops and upsetting the ecological balance, state media said on Friday.

Wild boar numbers have risen to an estimated 150,000 in Zhejiang province, compared to about 29,000 a decade ago, the China Daily said.

The population has flourished as China's notorious environmental destruction has wiped out traditional predators such as tigers and wolves, reports said.

The China Daily also quoted experts saying the huge migration of labour to cities has left fewer farmers home to keep boars in check, while curbs on gun use during the six-month World Expo in nearby Shanghai has halted hunting.

The Expo runs to the end of October.

Corn yields in at least one village this year have been reduced by a third as crops have been trampled by the four-legged marauders, and some people have been hurt by the animals, the China Daily said, giving no figures.

The swelling wild boar population also was upsetting the natural balance in other animal populations, press reports said.

Wild boars are known to eat snakes, removing a predator that normally feeds on rats and mice, and as a result, grain-eating rodent populations were on the rise.

Some local farmers were stepping up use of traps and setting up electric fences around their farms to ward off the boars, the China Daily said.