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Residents in Latvia's capital city have been stumbling across wild boar in the heart of the city.

Two of the animals were spotted enjoying an early-hours jaunt through central Riga at the weekend, prompting police and vets to descend in an attempt to corner them, . The pair ventured as far as the city's Freedom Monument before officers caught up with them, the website says. The animals were sedated and later released into a nearby forest.

It's the latest in a line of boar sightings in the Baltic city, where authorities are debating how to deal with the growing problem. Earlier sightings included a large group of boar , seemingly unperturbed by passing traffic. "When you've got a town created in the middle of the woods, you shouldn't wonder that forest animals will be living there too," councillor Askolds Klavins .

Riga isn't alone among European cities in having to deal with an influx of urban boar. Berlin hired a boar hunter to deal with an invasion of the animals in 2011. And the Italian port city of Genoa saw a similar influx two years later, with boar causing traffic accidents and one reportedly eating a pensioner's pet dog.

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