EFFECT OF DIET SUPPLY AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS ON POPULATION DYNAMICS OF THE WILD BOAR (SUS SCROFA) IN THE KŘIVOKLÁT REGION (CENTRAL BOHEMIA, CZECH REPUBLIC)

Abundance of the wild boar (Sus scrofa) has rapidly increased in the Czech Republic and all over the world especially over the past 30 years. The main causes are high adaptability on changing environment, adaptive foraging strategies, and high fecundity. The aim of the paper is to put into context increase of the wild boar abundance (as estimated from numbers of hunted game in various age groups) with food offer in agricultural land and in the forest in hunting districts of the Křivoklát protected landscape area. As a correlation factor, minimum temperature at the ground surface in February and March was considered. All the monitored variables were divided into food and statistical factors and they were evaluated by principal component analysis (PCA). The highest variance in relation to the number of hunted wild boars is explained by breadths of spring crops (by 30%), followed by breadths of winter crops along with minimal temperatures above ground surface in February and early March (by 22%). Variance of minimal temperatures in the second and third decades of March in conjunction with occurrence of oak and beech mast years is explained only by 18%. More distinctive increase of hunted wild boars was always a year following the mast year