Abstract
The wild boar (Sus scrofa) is distributed widely in Japan, and agricultural damage has occurred frequently in their distribution area. Although the agricultural damage of the wild boar in Niigata Prefecture was only 80,000 yen in 2005, it amounted to 40 million yen in 2009. Environmental variables related to the agricultural damage by the wild boar have been reported: Altitude, the percentage of forests and fields within their habitat, reduction of forest use, increase of the abandoned cultivated land and so on. However, the previous researches did not target the area where the population of the wild boar has expanded such as Niigata Prefecture. In this research, we aimed to clarify the relationship between the agricultural damage by the wild boar and the factors concerning the landscape structure in Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture. We used "the wildlife damage report data concerning paddy rice mutual aid appraisal of damage" as the locations of the agricultural damage, and the GIS data which was digitized the geographic data by the field survey. As the non-agricultural damaged area, we applied pseudo absence points which are same number of damaged locations. Logistic analysis which represents the relationship between the wild boar damage and the environmental variables such as forest edge, the distance from river and so on was employed. As the results, about the distance from forest edge, stream, and the abandoned cultivated land, we obtained the positive effect for the probability of damage. On the other hands, the negative effects were obtained from the distance to river, roads, and urban areas. We suggest that the wild boar damage was occurred around the forest edge and the abandoned cultivated land from our predictions. The management of forest edge and the abandoned cultivated land within the habitat of the wild boar is necessary for damage control.
