[News Today] FOOD-SEARCHING BOARS WRECK HAVOC

[LEAD]
Activity of wild boars have intensified with the fall season, leading to increasing incidents across various locations. Boars have descended from mountains, digging up graveyards and wreaking havoc in downtown subway stations.

[REPORT]
A cemetery in Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do Province.

Large holes are spotted all over the ground as if cannons had gone off. The burial mounds which should be covering the graves are completely gone.

Boars living in nearby mountains are presumed to have dug up the graves in search of food.

Shin Yong-il/ Cemetery caretaker
Boars dug up the ground with their snouts. This has never happened in the past 50-55 years since the cemetery opened.

Lee Hyeong-gwan/ KBS reporter
These are mounds dug up by the boars. The grass over the mounds are turned over and earth has been exposed at some graves.

More than forty graves were destroyed.

Jeong Hyeong-guk/ Geoje resident
This is my brother's grave. I was so shocked, sad to see the grave damaged.

A boar showed up at a subway station in the city center. The animal went on a rampage through the station platform for about an hour.

A man in his thirties was bitten in the arm and several metro facilities were damaged.

An attempt to capture the animal failed and the boar was eventually shot to death.

Roughly 2,300 boar hunt cases were registered nationwide over the past two years and four months. Most of the incidents were concentrated in fall and early winter.

Park Do-beom/ Korea Wild and Plant Service
This is when boars are most actively seeking food, before winter. I think they got lost after coming down from the mountain and ended up in the city center.

When you do come across a boar, experts advise to not turn your back and flee while looking straight ahead before making way so the boar could run away.