Wild Boar

General information

Wild Boar are the ancestor of our domestic pig, native to the forests of Europe, North Africa and Asia. Depending on its home range, the wild boar varies in colour from black, brown, dark grey to a red. They are medium in size with a large head and front end. Due to having very small eyes, their eyesight is particularly poor, but having a long snout gives them a brilliant sense of smell. Although all boar have tusks growing on their bottom lip, the males grow the tusks much larger in size with an extra pair on their top lip. These larger tusks are used for fighting off other males in the breeding season. 

Mainly nocturnal, Wild Boar spend around 12 hours a day sleeping. Females are very social living in large family groups of up to 30 members and these groups consist of the breeding females and their young. Males are more solitary, spending most of their time alone but will move closer to the females during breeding season. Unfortunately they were hunted to extinction in the 1600s but were reintroduced for meat farming, with the inevitable escapees now found in many UK woodlands.