It's that time of the year and unfortunately the wild boar have made their presence known throughout the area, rooting around the road verges and in (one reported) instance, rooting up someone's lawn.
Article HERE
The next four to five months will see a bombardment from people screaming for the boar to be killed and even eradicated from the area due to them rooting over the road verges.
I understand that if boar manage to enter private property, they can do an awful amount of damage and this can be heartbreaking for the owners.
Apart from erecting a sturdy fence or building a wall high enough to stop them, there really isn't much that can be done to stop them if they are attracted to the property.
All it takes is for fruit from a tree to be lying on the ground, or waste food and this will be enough to attract them.
I really do feel for the people, which lose their lawns in this way and I also understand that not everyone has the money to secure their perimeter, so they really are left in despair.
The Forestry Commission are currently culling 135 wild boar in the Forest of Dean and if I was in this situation, I would be asking them to concentrate on the areas that are seeing boar rooting around, or on private land as this will stop the problem and the FC can leave the boar alone, in the middle of the forest where they are causing no harm to anyone.
Moving on to the present cull of 135 animals. Without information (through the Freedom of Information Act), I can only assume that boar are being culled in the forest, away from residential areas and we must once again ask the question. "Why is it that we see a cull at this time every year and at precisely the same time we see an increase in activity around the roadside and residential areas?"
Are the boar being forced to seek out safer locations, away from the guns? I have said this before, but if someone was walking down the street shooting my neighbours, I would not just sit there and wait for my turn, I would either fight back, or run.
The boar are running and this has also been touched on, in a slightly different way with the badgers. With badgers it is called the perturbation effect, where a threatened badger will flee the sett in search of safer ground, taking TB with it, if it is infected.
The boar are fleeing the safety of the area they are in and as the Forestry Commission can not shoot near residential areas, this is where the boar feel safe.
They are very smart animals and they are trying to stay alive, nothing more. All the FC has to do is concentrate on the boar, in the areas where the problems are occurring and push them back into the forest.
I mean lets face it, if they are being pushed out, why not shoot near the edges and push them back in as they will then feel that the periphery is not safe, whereas the denser parts are!
We are too quick to scream kill kill kill, but how many people have actually stopped for just one second to look in the mirror as we have caused more damage in the Forest of Dean than the boar will "ever cause."
The difference is that our damage is irreversible, whereas the boar are actually airing and cultivating the soil.
Slight difference there and it really should not be referred to as damage "all the time!"
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| Wild Boar Sow - in the Forest |
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| Wild Boar Sow with Piglets - in the Forest |
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| Wild Boar Sow Rooting - in the Forest |
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| Wild Boar Rooting on Industrial Estate During the Cull of 2010 |
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| Sow |
Rob
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