My colleague, LM, is one to find interesting facts and and is constantly searching very old works and archives. For instance LM has acquired a book from 1806: The British Museum; or, Elegant Repository of Natural History vol. II by William Holloway.
"The more ancient the boar … the darker they are .. mostly black points"
This is something LM had suspected for a while and although I did wonder the fact that LM can go to a recognised if rare book and find this information is great for the British Extinct Fauna Project that LM started.
Today we know that wild boar are back in the UK countryside and the "Great Storm of 1987" was blamed for destroying fences, etc and releasing them. The truth is -and I was there running the Exotic Animals Register (EAR)- that a lot of boar were dumped or "had escapes enabled". The exotic meat craze was taking a nose dive and costs rising while feeding and housing the boar by strict guidelines was costly. I found three boar farms where there was no damage to enclosures by storm but some very shady wire snipping.
But rather like the sudden appearance of pairs of European wild cats in the UK countryside from the late 1970s on so there were reports of "shaggy dark pigs" but without a photo or any other solid data the reports were just logged.
Now if you go to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds) site you will find a feature on wild boar and read:
"Why are wild boar back in the UK?
"Since the 1970s, groups of wild boar have started popping up. We can't be sure whether the first returning boars were escapees from local farms or part of deliberate unregulated releases, but either way, the runaways have successfully made homes in some of the UK’s rural and wooded areas. As a former native species, the hairy wild boar are perfectly prepared for the UK’s chilly climate and can happily breed and find food here."
It is quite obvious, even more so by the mid 1990s, that someone or some group as this was well organised and a well known "open secret" amongst wildlife organisations, had been releasing specific animals in the countryside: wild cats, boar and even beaver and in certain locations even pine martens. If we ever find out who is or was behind this it will be interesting since breeding and even housing, feeding and finding the right locations took a lot of work.
The Sarah Woodbury blog carries an item on wild boar and this part is interesting:
“The wild boar, Sus scrofa, is a native British species. It probably became extinct as a wild species at the end of the 13th century (Yalden 1999). After this date wild boar were maintained for game and as a status symbol by introduction of new stock from France and Germany and through hybridisation with domestic and feral pigs. By the 17th century no wild boar were found in Britain, suggesting that the medieval reintroductions were not successful, possibly because of hunting pressure.”"
https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/the-wild-boar-in-britain/
Yes, rather like deer, hares, foxes, red squirrels and a number of other species that hunting wiped out in the mid 1800s (c 1860s) where the dread of losing the 'fun' of hunting and killing resulted in the importation of these species from Europe it was nothing new. In fact the landed gents and huntmasters likely had ancestors who imported for hunting and for private zoos and probably got the "solution" from them.
We see the same pattern though; wild boar wiped out through hunting. Wild boar imported to replenish hunt stock. Wild boar wiped out again. There was, as with foxes, no attempt to let the boar spread and breed it was likely that boar were turned out just before the hunt or with enough time to escape the inevitable fate and "give good chace". It is the same old repetitious pattern over and over.
According to the Woodland Trust https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/mammals/wild-boar/
"The current UK boar population is derived from captive animals that either escaped or were illegally released. An estimated 2,600 animals are now living wild in several breeding populations. The largest of these is in the Forest of Dean, but wild boar are also present in parts of South East and South West England, South East Wales and North West Scotland."
There is also a post on Rewilding Britain worth reading as it explains the positive effect the boar have on the environment:
https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/reintroductions-key-species/key-species/wild-boar-pig
So boar are back -yippee! Uh, no, because there are still people wanting to "cull" boar and we know that they are being killed and this has been going on for a long time as shown by the story in The Guardian in 2018: 'Immoral': groups fight National Trust's wild boar cull" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/22/immoral-groups-fight-national-trusts-wild-boar-cull
In other words no one ever learns and the lust to kill anything is stronger than the need to improve the environment and conserve wildlife.
The UK really is The Blood Island
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