As England’s southern counties are panicked by newspaper claims that the countryside will soon be swarming with wild boar, we look at how Spain lives alongside this much maligned creature.

Pink eyes charging out of the dark, cloven hoofs clattering, razor sharp tusks ready to rip you to shreds…it all sounds very scary but does this popular version of the wild boar hold even a shred of truth?   Newspaper editors in England have made great weight of the fact that there are now wild boar living in the south of the country.

Classed as dangerous under the Wild Animals Act, keepers of wild boar in England have to make sure that proper safeguards are in place to stop the animals from escaping.  This hasn’t always gone to plan and break outs from breeding farms over the last ten years or so mean that there is now a large population living and breeding in Britain.  Sightings from Scotland to Sussex confirm this although the heaviest concentration of the creatures is in the south east where more than a thousand live in woodlands.
"They will rip up and kill dogs with no effort at all and people are often gored by them. They will charge you if wounded and their tusks are sharp enough to shave with. I know someone who has been gored 10 or 15 times and even carries his own suture kit." Said an interviewee in the Sunday Telegraph recently. 

Here in Spain where these shy creatures are naturally indigenous you will not find such reports. The Spanish look upon wild boar as sport, meat and an occasional nuisance, pretty much in that order.

Whilst the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Activities in England is looking at the possibility of culling wild boar, Spain has its own way of dealing with the population. Boar hunting is immensely popular with special areas being set aside in many parts of the countryside and marked by a black and white signpost indicating a private hunting zone.  Unlike England where boar hunting is only permitted with a high-calibre rifle, Spaniards are allowed to hunt with specially-bred dogs, usually the smooth-haired, fine boned Pondencos that look a bit like a greyhound.  Their huge ears and keen noses make them ideal for finding the prey and driving it to where it can be shot by hunters.  Good dogs change hands for several thousand euros.

They are prized for their tasty meat, which is cooked like venison and cut into the same joints. Family gatherings in Spain often take place around the barbecue when a large jabalí has been caught and brought home to be butchered and shared. The bristles are prized for use in hairbrushes.

Nocturnal creatures, a fully-grown adult boar can weigh up to 180 kilos and measure two metres from snout to tail. They have poor eyesight but an excellent sense of smell and can usually sniff humans out long before they are themselves found. After two years of age the male wild boar grow tusks from both the upper and lower canines curving upwards. The top tusks are hollow and act as a permanent whetstone against which the lower tusks are continually sharpened. The lower tusks are tremendously sharp. Females do not grow the upper 'sharpening' tusks as do the males, and their lower tusks are smaller, but are still pretty sharp. They are very vocal and communicate with each other through a series of grunts and squeals.

Wild boar are very wary and shy from human contact. Although the sows can be aggressive to one another when establishing dominance within the group or when feeding, aggression involves pushing and biting between themselves only. Mature males are most aggressive to each other during the autumn rut when potentially fatal injuries can be inflicted on each other from their sharp tusks. Wild boar are not dangerous to people provided they are left alone; they will only charge if cornered or if their young are threatened.  They breed twice a year producing litters of up to eight piglets. Living in family units with one male, the sows make hollow ‘nests’ in the vegetation for sleeping choosing dense vegetation and forests in which to live, mate and reproduce.

Wild boar are indigenous to Western Europe and Northern Africa but non-indigenous populations of wild boar and feral pigs have become established in many other countries. Populations of wild boar have increased in recent decades. The reason is unclear but may be due to decreasing numbers of their natural predators, such as lynx and wolves as well as increased protection, regulated hunting and agricultural crop changes. They themselves are omnivorous consuming mainly plant material which they root for but will eat lizards, worms, small rodents and snakes.

Farmers in southern England are leading the calls for culling claiming that the boar are a pest to crops, which they damage by rooting with their powerful snouts, but fans of these creatures, last seen in Britain in Medieval times when they were popular hunting quarry, claim they benefit the countryside by keeping rodents down.

And as for the claims that the animals are dangerous?  You are more likely to have your car damaged when one of the animals wanders into the road at night than suffer any personal attack.  If you leave them alone they will do their best to keep out of your way.  Especially in Spain where the crack of the hunters guns goes on all year and it is only in March that the season is closed.

For more information on wild boar in Spain visit faunaiberica.org/especies and in England www.defra.gov.uk