"What can we do to stop the Forestry culling Boar in our area 'on Public Safety grounds'. A whole family of boar was culled this week near Trellech, they were causing no trouble, in fact they spent nearly an hour playing with my brother in laws dog! A real shame." - communication to website, August 2009.
Often the media portrays wild boar as being very dangerous animals, but we need to keep things in perspective. With all animals, wild and domestic, there is an element of unpredictability, but wild boar do seem to get an unjustifiably bad press. This boar photographed in the Forest of Dean highlights they are not the killers the media would have us believe.
A wild boar in the Forest of Dean Too tame for her own good? (I mean the boar, not the lady!) . (© David Slater, reproduced with permission).
A photographer (with nerves of steel?) snapped this close-up of a male wild boar in the Forest of Dean. (© Ben Locke, http://ben909.blogspot.com/, reproduced with permission http://ben909.blogspot.com/).
The public safety information below is gleaned from comments by experienced wildlife managers, reputable wildlife organisations and my own personal experiences. However, in these litigious times, do not take this page as gospel! No liability is accepted if things go pear-shaped when walking in the woods and a wild boar takes exception to you. Use your own judgement, then please email and berate me with your experiences so we can communicate them for the greater good.
A sleeping male 'tusker' boar. This beast was photogrphed on a Devon farm. If I came across him in the wild, I would leave him sleeping, but what would you do? ....and you might come across him, he's escaped! (© Martin Goulding).
Yes, it is safe to walk, jog, cycle and camp in the woods, and with the children, cub scouts or brownies too. Any wild boar present will scent or hear you, then deliberately avoid you (especially if you have been gingangoolying around the camp fire all night). Wild boar are not attracted to, nor frightened by fire, but the Forestry Commission certainly is. Furthermore, food does not have to be hidden because wild boar will not raid your picnic hamper. Yogi bear might though!
Kent County Council informs walkers, through a notice at the entrance to the relevant woodland, that wild boar ‘.... are not regarded as a danger to the public; however, injured or distressed animals should not be approached.’ Similarly, East Sussex County Council displays the notice ‘Caution. Wild boar in Woods. Please take care and keep to the path’. No notices are currently placed on woodland managed by the Forestry Commission, with this exception:
Signs put up by the Forestry Commission around campsites in the Forest of Dean - they help the Forestry Commission to avoid being sued! (© Christian Amodeo reproduced with permission).
In General
Wild boar are large and potentially dangerous animals. However, people have been hunting wild boar for thousands of years thus wild boar are afraid of us. If you come across a group wild boar in the woods they will always flee from you. Although their eyesight is poor, wild boar hear and scent very well. They will know you are in the woods long before you know they are there, and they will make themselves scarce.
The only real danger would be to step on a wild boar sleeping away the daytime hours, which will then wake up and may feel threatened. I have actually done this several times when radio-tracking wild boar in areas of tall vegetation. Fortunately the woken animal has run off every time, but it certainly gets the heart racing.
This running-away-from-people rule does not apply to wild boar that have recently escaped from captivity. Often these relatively tame animals associate people with food and may come up to you thinking you are going to feed them. After being shot at a few times, the boar get the message that life is not all a bed of warm straw and a bucket of pig nuts, and the survivors gradually become nocturnal and as secretive as free-born populations. These tame animals pose no threat to you, but may take a dislike to your dog if they perceive it to be a threat.
Wild Boar in Groups
Groups of wild boar(sounders) are organised in order of seniority around a leading matriarchal sow, typically one of the oldest of the group. When any boar, young or old, of high or low ranking, notices anything unusual or potentially dangerous to the group, it "blows" a warning snort. The group immediately stop what they are doing and 'decision control' transfers to the matriarchal sow. She may send a ‘scout’ towards the possible danger to check it out. If you are the danger, talk or shout loudly so the danger (you) clearly appears to the boar. The matriarchal sow will then bark a loud grunt and immediately all the boar will flee.
Sows with Piglets
Beware of close encounters sows with piglets. Sows are intelligent animals and will not start an unnecessary fight with a person, except possibly a sow with tiny piglets in their first few weeks of life.
If walking in the woods between February and May, avoid dense bushy areas with open sunny spaces where there may be sows with piglets. For eleven months of the year sows will creep away from you so quietly you will never know they were there. But in the one month when they have small piglets, if you come too close, they may attack, but only may. Again though, the sow will blow a warning snort, allowing you time to retreat away and showing the sow that you understood. If the sow does charge, all may not be lost as they often dummy charge, stopping short of the intended target.
The stance of this sow in France shows she knows the photographer is there and is wary for her piglets. She is weighing up what to do next, either turn and bolt or, much less likley, charge at the photographer. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, common sense dictactes you calmly walk back in the direction you came from. Supposing you were walking your dog, what would your dog do next? (ownership of photograph unknown, please advise on legality of use).
Mode of Attack
A male boar attacks by running at you with his head which he then lifts up slashing your legs with his sharp tusks. He then runs off. Fatalities rarely occur and are usually a result of blood loss if an artery is cut. Sows, which don’t have protruding tusks, attack head-up with mouth gaping open like a hippo. They bite rather than slash but sows have large mouths and can bite fiercely.
Keeping a Perspective
Lets keep things in perspective. When working with the free-living wild boar in Britain at all months of the year (including radio-tracking on-foot sows with piglets), I never had one problem. I feared certain breeds of domestic dogs being walked in the woods far more than the boar. If you are attacked by a wild boar, consider yourself damned unlucky (although I appreciate that is no compensation!)
The scary side of wild boar - being slashed by these tusks is definately not good. (© Martin Goulding).
Advice from Defra
Defra (The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has given out the following advise regarding wild boar, under the title of:
Wild boar are normally secretive and nocturnal if they are not interfered with and there are very few documented cases of boar attacking people in Europe or elsewhere. However, the following advice and guidance is offered to those who may encounter wild boar whilst out walking in the countryside.
When not continually shot at or harassed, wild boar (as seen here in Poland) can become quite tame and urbanised. They are obviously not the killing machines they are often made out to be, but remember with all animals (wild or domestic) there is always that element of unpredicatability. (ownership of photographs unknown, please advise on legality of use).
Advice from the RSPCA
"Since wild boar like dense areas with lots of gorse and other cover,walkers may not even be aware that these creatures have young," saidChief inspector Thomas. "It is quite usual for the piglets to be hiddenin the undergrowth, with the sows coming forward to make their presenceknown if they feel threatened by a person or dog which has run on aheadof its owner."
"Wild boar are not usually aggressive creatures, but like all goodmothers these simply want to protect their young, so we urge the publicto keep their distance as much as possible and ensure their dogs arekept under control."
Advice from a Japanese Website
Wild boar are common in Japan, and the following safety advice is given out, under the title of:
A panicking farmer in Kent put up this makeshift sign. It reads "Danger Keep Out Wild Boar Seen Here These Animals Can Kill". (© Martin Goulding).
....... and finally, lest we get too carried away
Fascinating picture of a sow suckling her piglets in the middle of surburban Berlin. Many thanks to Jerzy Dyczkowski for allerting us to this. The text and picture are from Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2003 on their site at http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wildwin/2003/index.html.
Jerzy writes:
"Not British, but picture of urban wild boar from Berlin was highly commended in British Wildlife Photographer 2003 competition. I hope this photo finally dispells myths that wild boars cannot live in densely populated areas. Just look at this sow suckling piglets by the car in suburban Berlin".
