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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Jessica Glenza

Shakira says two wild boars attacked her in Barcelona park

‘They were taking my bag to the woods with my phone in it,’ the singer said on Instagram.
‘They were taking my bag to the woods with my phone in it,’ the singer said on Instagram. Photograph: Ruben Sprich/Reuters

Shakira said two wild boars attacked her in a Barcelona park and destroyed her bag.

In an Instagram story post, the singer held up her dirty and torn bag as evidence, which she said boars tried to carry off into the woods.

“Look how they left my bag, the two wild boars that attacked me in the park,” the singer said, speaking in Spanish. “They were taking my bag to the woods with my phone in it. They’ve destroyed everything,” she said.

Boars have become a widespread nuisance in cities, as urban environments have increasingly expanded. The animals have increasingly become a presence in European cities.

In another high-profile boar incident, a wild pig stole a laptop from a man sunbathing nude in Berlin. The nudist successfully pursued the boar and her two piglets and recovered his laptop, though not before having his picture snapped. This May, hungry boars cornered a Roman woman and stole her groceries.

Just last week, Romans widely shared a video of a group of more than a dozen wild boars who roamed the trafficked streets of Via Trionfale. The video prompted suggestions that Rome should have “wild boar lanes” instead of bike lanes, and quickly became an issue in the mayoral race.

Barcelona police fielded a peak of nearly 1,200 calls about boars’ destructive behavior in 2016, from running into cars and holding up traffic to rooting turf and trash. The wild pigs have become a nuisance in cities as far flung as Hong Kong and Houston.

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