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Wild Boar cull in the FoD

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Wayne said:
Whilst I am sorry Rod that they are having a negative impact on you I think from a conservation and ecological perspective its great to have them back in the UK.
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Wayne, I can (sort of) see what you are getting at, but I can see absolutely NO positive conservation or ecological reason or advantage for re-introducing a dangerous animal that has been extinct here for over seven hundred years.

What next? Reintroduce the mammoth? :)

Rod
 
Whilst alas i have never seen a wild boar i have seen the damage they do along all the roads i drive to work. Im neither for nor against the cull as they do not have any impact on my life....

however i would fully back a reintroduce the mammoth campaign for the forest... great tourist attraction and fitting with the current weather conditions
 
Omegarod said:
Wayne. Wild boar were last native here over 700 years ago! (Wolves only 160 years ago). Frankly, with today's human populations it just isn't at all practical to reintroduce either, especially as they don't have any predators. Its just downright foolish to reintroduce such dangerous animals in such close proximity to humans. Indeed, I can no longer take my dogs out with me when I go walking in the forest, and I am acutely aware of having to be on the lookout just about every day here.

Humans have been attacked without provocation. Fortunately as yet only tears to legs and no fatalities. What happens when the first child is killed here? Its only a matter of time.

Rod
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According to Yalden's (1999) History of British Mammals, the last native Wild Boar probably did become extinct in the 13th century. However large populations were maintained for hunting in Windsor Park, Savernake, Alice Holt and Woolmer until at least the 17th century.

I don't know what the statistics from Europe on wild boar related deaths are (I strongly suspect very low). I do know the French Government is more concerned with the increase in road fatalities as a result of the increase in boar numbers over the past couple of decades.

Personally I think it is a good thing for us Brits to learn a little humility when out in the countryside. We've become far too used to being the top predator. Much of the rest of the world goes for a walk in the countryside keeping one eye open for slightly grumpy wildlife: wild boar in Western Europe; bears, moose and elk in North America. It serves to remind us that perhaps we don't have total dominion over nature and have no right to expect it.
 
Omegarod said:
They have been known to attack people, and particularly people with dogs.

They're a damned nuisance, and dangerous too.
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As I said, they will soon learn that we are preadators and become nocturnal and migrate away from the FoD, Badgers are probably more dangerous than boar and yet we have a massive population of them. We dont see them very often though. They will soon become a part of our ecosystem (and a helpful part too) they wont bother you for much longer now they arnt allowed to roam without being hunted. A few weeks, and they will scatter.
 
I stayed in a holiday cabin in a forest in Poland last year. The wild boars were so tame, people fed them by hand. Dozens of the beasties.

I was rather nervous about them being around a family holiday area with small children about. Certainly didn't let my daughter out of sight.
 
I'd love to see more Boar in the UK. I know they can pose a risk to people, especially townies who don't know that creeping up on the fluffy little one is likely to upset the mum a bit!

I like to shoot. To me wild food is much better than mass produced farm meat and I always have a good stock of Venison in the freezer. To have Boar too would be wonderful. Like all things, if controlled these animals can be a natural resource providing good healthy food for people who know how to take them cleanly and humanely.

I'm not sure I'd like to see anyone trap them though. Unless in a true survival situation I don't agree with any method which will more than likely make the animal suffer. It would take a seriously powerful and dangerous trap to take a Boar humanely!
 
Davey569 said:
The boar in the FoD anyway. I have a friend who had a run in with a badger, it ripped the front bumper off his car and when he got out to retrieve the bumper the badger came back and attacked him ripping his legs to shreds! :O
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I expect that's because it's been injured.
I've never had a badger act aggressively towards me.
 
The boar have been hunted in the Forest of Dean for a good few years now. I belive that a new british record keiler was taken last year from somewhere in the forest of dean. Like many places it happenes already, its just the general public arent that clued up, as most of yan would kick up a fuss ;)


Sam
 
NIce thread,
Spent some years in Berlin and they have large boar populations. They also have problems with them. Different management strategies are applied in east and west Berlin and the reults were visible. In east Berlin, Lichtenberg at least, boar hunting was allowed. I never saw one in the east, just some signiture foraging holes once! In the west side of the city animal rights activists were very active and, in the absence of management, boar were a relatively major problem. The activists, im certain, thought they were doin the right thing but it didn't work out that way. The boar became tame, people fed them, the bagan to associate people with food, they lost their fear of people and gradually became a nuisance and were sometimes dangerous. A funny example..School children waiting on the bus bagan to feed the boar every morning, after a very short amount of time, they are smart, the boar would turn up before the children and wait. Children wouldnt be allowed onto the bus before they had emptied their lunch boxes. Completely!

I have had some close encounters in the east, all enjoyable but scary.

Guess the point is that proper management planning and implementation is the key.

I would love to see em in Ireland but I dont think we would have the capacity to properly manage them. :(
 
Davey569 said:
Neither have I but I know that they can be very aggressive. Thats just my opinion anyway, I might be wrong. :)
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I spent 10 years running about climbing trees, crawling along tracks and playing on a moor with a very high population of badgers when I was growing up and never had any trouble from them at all. In fact, I rarely saw them as they are very timid.

That said, I hear they can be aggressive if cornered and attacked by dogs (as happens in illegal badger baiting)
 
Davey569 said:
Badgers are probably more dangerous than boar .
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yeah lost count of the amount of times i've seen headlines about the latest badger attack.
'badger kills baby'
'badgers ate my face'

wild boar have tusks and don't need much provoking into charging.
also the height of the boar means that any wounds caused by the tusks will be dangerously close to the femoral artery.
 
wattsy said:
yeah lost count of the amount of times i've seen headlines about the latest badger attack.
'badger kills baby'
'badgers ate my face'

wild boar have tusks and don't need much provoking into charging.
also the height of the boar means that any wounds caused by the tusks will be dangerously close to the femoral artery.
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You do realise I am talking about the boar in the FoD? the ones people go up to and feed? the ones that have obviously not been hunted due to the fact they have no fear of humans? the fact that they are still active in the day and are not nocturnal? the ones that you can watch and walk by and that follow you around? Oh yes, they really do sound like dangerous animals!
 
Davey569 said:
You do realise I am talking about the boar in the FoD? the ones people go up to and feed? the ones that have obviously not been hunted due to the fact they have no fear of humans? the fact that they are still active in the day and are not nocturnal? the ones that you can watch and walk by and that follow you around? Oh yes, they really do sound like dangerous animals!
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Yes.... whilst you are safely tucked away up in Dudley, these are the very ones where I live. They are just a few hundred yards away from my house. The ones that have put several humans in hospital last year with gored legs and thighs. The ones that have killed several dogs during the last year. Its only a matter of time before a child is killed by one of those things that you call "tame" animals. Cute little things the are not!

Rod
 
Davey569 said:
the ones that have obviously not been hunted due to the fact they have no fear of humans?
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You are wrong, I among other people have done it.

http://www.britishwildboar.org.uk/shootingbig.html



And EDIT from my last post,



britishwildboar.org said:
The Herefordshire boar mentioned above is the current record and scored 123.7 CIC points beating the previous record of 122.5 CIC points, an animal shot within a mile of the latest record and estimated by an experienced stalker to weigh about 350lbs (159kg).
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Sam
 
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