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Wild Boar

Michael Watson said:
are believed to have escaped during the Great Storm a few years back,

And found out the true story about this but can't really post as could be a bit "iffy".
 
http://bwba.co.uk/
The British Wild Boar Association was set up in 1989 to promote the commercial development, welfare and understanding of husbanded wild boar in Britain.

Paul McCartney denies any responsibility for a proliferation of rampaging boars that are killing lambs and damaging crops near his farm.
The Times of London yesterday quoted farmers as suggesting Mr. McCartney and his wife, Linda, were harboring the fierce, tusked wild hogs.
"They are putting out carrots and so on for these creatures. They won't have hunters on the land because they are against killing animals, so their farm has become a safe haven," sheep farmer Diana Morrison said.
Geoff Baker, a spokesman for the 54-year-old ex-Beatle, said that the claims are "total rubbish" and that the McCartneys have never seen any wild boar around their farm about 50 miles southeast of London.

http://www.s-t.com/daily/02-97/02-11-97/zzzwnppl.htm

Evidence that Macca may have been telling Porkies (sorry!): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3175626.stm
 
Close, have heard rumours that a member of a "popular beat combo" was responsible, as was the Great Storm of whenever, however it could be that a local farmer who was rearing them for "exclucive" food outlets (based in London) had trouble about them escaping when taken to abattoir that said abattoir didnt want anything to do with them,...gates to compound at farm left unlocked at night ,no boar in morning, problem solved..me, I'm glad they are back after a three hundred year absents.
 
Congrats on seeing your boar!

People have been trying to re introduce boar into this country for centuries, its no big deal who did it.

But i find it stange that farmers would `lose` such valuable animals.

(can quite agree with an abbatoir not wanting them, nasty tusked pieces of work.)
 
Posh peoples grub store insisted on them being slaughtered in proper place, when slaughter house said no more he was stuck with them, 50 hungry mouths to feed and look after and no way of converting them into profit !.
 
Moose is good eatin' too. Also I took a short flight from Calgary to Edmonton once on a small regional carrier and they served us caribou jerky. :yeay:
 
A big article with plenty of interesting bits:

If you go down to the woods today ...

They were hunted to extinction in Britain in the 17th century. Then, in the 1980s, we decided to farm them for tasty sausages. A few broken fences later and the boar was back in the British wild - and breeding. Time to panic? Leo Benedictus has a close encounter in Kent

Thursday May 13, 2004
The Guardian

.......................

Wild boar became extinct in Britain in the 17th century. One fanciful legend has it that the last one died on the lance of James I (1603-25), but since there were sightings up to 1683, that seems unlikely. The animal's ferocity and stamina made it a highly prized and respected quarry among huntsmen all over Europe; one animal nearly gored Henry VIII to death. Its acute hearing and sense of smell made it easy for the wild boar to avoid mankind, as did its nocturnal lifestyle and preference for dense woodland. But when the forests disappeared, the boar went too.

It was the great storms of 1989 that gave Britain back its boars. Farms had sprung up throughout the decade to cater for adventurous yuppie palates, supplying what seemed to be the ideal low-maintenance meat: simply enclose a patch of woodland with a good, strong fence, release your imported or zoo-surplus boar, and the animal's determined nature and unfussy tastes will do the rest. But when one such fence was crushed by fallen trees near Tenterden in Kent, an unknown number of boars escaped and set about establishing a colony. Further escapes have given Dorset and Herefordshire their own populations. Britain's boars were wild again.

....................


Wild boar (sus scrofa) typically grow up to around 5ft 11in (1.8m) in length and weigh more than 30 stone (190kg), although in April a 47-stone male, nicknamed Houdini after its escape some months earlier from a Gloucestershire boar farm, was killed while crossing a road in the Forest of Dean. (The first sightings in the early 1990s were reported as "escaped circus bears".) Like all animals, the wild boar prefers to stay out of trouble, but if it feels threatened - or worse, that its sows or its piglets are being threatened - it will fight to the death. And wild boar, who are battling for dominance within a week of birth, can get quite paranoid about these things.

They are unpredictable, too, and as fast as greyhounds. "Most domestic animals give you an indication that they're getting upset," says Harman, who admits to having fled up a tree last November. "But boar don't. Just all of a sudden - bang - they're coming at you."

Both males and females have two pairs of tusks each, on the upper and lower jaws, which grow up to six inches in length on the males. Cleverly, the upper set is grooved in such a way as to sharpen the lower set with every gnash. A wild boar's tusks are therefore rather like kitchen knives, except that their only use is for fighting.

Their preferred fighting method is disembowelment by a sharp, upward ripping movement. It is thought that adults may present a threat to young lambs, which can promise a tasty meal (although they are 90% vegetarian, boars are omnivores and certainly will not say no to fresh meat). Altogether, wild boar are probably the most dangerous wild animals in Britain.

..............................

Technically, it is not actually possible to poach boar, as British law does not yet recognise that they exist in the wild. The Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 says that farmers must prevent them from escaping, and must report it if they do. Unsurprisingly, however, few farmers choose to incriminate themselves in this way when they find a hole in the fence - particularly as there is no obligation to tag boar, which means they cannot be traced. (There are thought to be around 40 boar farms in the UK - no definitive figure exists.)

........................


I turn my head, and the first thing I see is a dark brown wild boar barely 30ft away, walking right past us. Now there's another one, an albino, bigger than the first. I am looking straight at it, and it is looking straight at me.

.............

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1215332,00.html
 
a great article

but I would say that a boar is the most dangerous animal pretty much anywhere, even tigers fear them.
 
See one from 40 meters , they are BIG buggers, magnificent.Aves or anyone else nearby, PM me and will try to show you spoor/tracks ect, taken me over two years to actually see one, well worth it if your a natural history buff.
 
Michael: If I'm ever down in that neck of the woods as I got awfully excited by it and seeing an albino boar too!!!

I think this kind of thing is a great idea and they should really start taking up spare fields (as we are at overcapcaity on farmland) and doing massive reforestation and then reintorduce native species.

Bears might be a bit too much but I'm all for wolves being reintroduced. I believe the plan was to se how they went on Rhum and then let them spread across the Highlands. the extra tourism money and the natural culling of the deer would offset any loss of livestock.

It might not work too well in England but parts of Wales would be ideal - if you go up to the head waters of the Ystwyth and up to the bits you can't usually access (where the road to Strata Florida goes) it looks like the moon (sort of) and if that coul be reforested it would be great.

But I'm rambling ;)

Emps
 
Yep, I'd like to see a lot more re-introductions, beavers (fnar fnar) are being re-introduced somewhere in Kent, Reindeer are or were being relaesed somewhere in Scotland, Wolves would be good up there to cull the overpopulated Red deer, found out recently that a speices of European terrapin was native to UK but died out, try that as well,have seen about a dozen or so terrapins living in the wild in Sussex, assume all released ect after mutant turtles craze, though two I knew of for a few years were well before that but were quite large (12" long), must learn to start and finish sentances :D .
 
Without breaking out in to crypto-zoology I would like to mention that there is the indisputed fact of wild boars in the town of tiptree, in essex.

12 pigs escaped some time ago, and if not kept fat on the food they are given in a farm (and as a result of the food type and processing, they are kept pink) then within 3 generations, its black and boar again.

If you go down to near napier farm and have a look in the blue bell woods, you can see them. I dont see why i cant go in the summer and take pictures, they are there, as you are there reading this right now.

Being the size they are, they do not hide that well in the small scrub fauna either.

Would anyone like to come sometime, I would be more than happy in the college break season.
 
Beaver would be great (~bites bottom lip to avoid innuendo~) - there was a great documentary on them on the TV a while back and their dam building is so impressive.

Bear would be amazing but probably impossible as would most of the other Last Interglacial fauna like hippo and hyena (as well as lions - if the last aren't already 'out there').

It shoul lead to a much more intersting countryside and I'm all for it (in case anyone didn't guess).

Emps
 
we used to have beaver, then the seventies came and went, and women got all self conscious
 
Went out this evening Boar tracking,did'nt see any, but found a lot of mud wallows, the saplings that they rub agianst after they've been in the mud,some of the mud on the saplings were the same level as my ribcage, there's some big buggers out there!.Tusk marks on the trees as well.
 
Went for a wander in the woods with wife and kids last Friday evening, Dane and me saw one from about 20 meters,and heard two or three more in undergrowth. I'm getting good at this.:) Hardly go looking for deer now as so easy to find, am now obsecced with boar !
 
Hogzilla, the legend grows

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/07/28/hogzilla.ap/index.html
(with photo)

ALAPAHA, Georgia (AP) -- Around these parts, they are calling it Hogzilla: a 12-foot-long wild hog recently killed on a plantation and now quickly becoming a part of local legend.

The plantation's owner claims the hog weighed 1,000 pounds and had 9-inch tusks. But few people have actually seen the hog -- the only proof being a photo that shows the dead beast hanging from a rope.

Whether the hog ever actually existed or is some sort of Faulknerian myth, it has definitely been the topic of conversation in small towns across southern Georgia.

"People just back up and ask 'Is it real?' They can't believe that there's a hog that big in the woods," said Drew White, who has a copy of the photo on display at an auto parts store in Tifton, about 17 miles away.

Chris Griffin said he killed the beast last month at the River Oak Plantation, where he is a hunting guide, and has been showing off the picture around this small farming community ever since. The hog is nearly twice as long as the 6-foot-tall Griffin, who is seen standing next to it in the photo.

"They say 'Man, you look like a dwarf compared to that thing,"' he said Wednesday.

The picture is all Griffin has to back up his claims. He and Ken Holyoak, owner of the plantation, buried the beast on the property and did not want to hassle with slaughtering it since the meat of large feral hogs is typically not very good.

Holyoak said he decided that the hog's head also wasn't worth keeping because it was too large to mount on a wall. He said the head has the diameter of a tire on a compact car.

"We had to lift him with a backhoe," he said.

No one maintains official records on hog kills in Georgia. But Department of Natural Resources biologist Kent Kammermeyer, who helped write a booklet on feral-hog problems in the state, said he has never heard of one as large as Hogzilla.

Holyoak said the plantation's previous record was a 695-pound hog shot several years ago. Enough wild hogs roam Holyoak's plantation that he has made it a side business to allow people to hunt them, but he said "Hogzilla" was too big to let someone else shoot.

"We killed it because we didn't want to take a chance of him getting away. Somebody else would have shot it," he said.

Feral hogs, popularly known as wild hogs, are domestic hogs that escaped from farms and began living off the land. They lay waste to corn and peanut fields and deprive more than 100 species -- including squirrels and deer -- of food.

"It's a big problem and it's getting worse," Kammermeyer said. "If you have a lot of hogs, you're going to have problems. Hogs are very aggressive. They run deer off and they can be dangerous if wounded or cornered."

Holyoak said he had to climb into a deer stand a few years back to escape a raging hog that circled around for six hours, foaming at the mouth and snapping at branches.

"They say bears get mad when you mess with their babies," Holyoak said. "Hogs don't need a reason to get mad and come after you."
 
Hogzilla?

Legend grows
around 'Hogzilla'
1,000-pound hog reportedly
killed on Georgia plantation
Chris Griffin, 31, poses beside the half-ton wild hog he says he shot near Alapaha, Ga., in June.
By Elliott Minor
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:28 p.m. ET July 28, 2004ALAPAHA, Ga. - Around these parts, they are calling it Hogzilla: a 12-foot-long wild hog recently killed on a plantation and now quickly becoming a part of local legend.

The plantation's owner claims the hog weighed 1,000 pounds and had 9-inch tusks. But few people have actually seen the hog -- the only proof being a photo that shows the dead beast hanging from a rope.

Whether the hog ever actually existed or is some sort of Faulknerian myth, it has definitely been the topic of conversation in small towns across southern Georgia.

"People just back up and ask 'Is it real?' They can't believe that there's a hog that big in the woods," said Drew White, who has a copy of the photo on display at an auto parts store in Tifton, about 17 miles away.

Chris Griffin said he killed the beast last month at the River Oak Plantation, where he is a hunting guide, and has been showing off the picture around this small farming community ever since. The hog is nearly twice as long as the 6-foot-tall Griffin, who is seen standing next to it in the photo.

"They say 'Man, you look like a dwarf compared to that thing,'" he said Wednesday.

The picture is all Griffin has to back up his claims. He and Ken Holyoak, owner of the plantation, buried the beast on the property and did not want to hassle with slaughtering it since the meat of large feral hogs is typically not very good.

Holyoak said he decided that the hog's head also wasn't worth keeping because it was too large to mount on a wall. He said the head has the diameter of a tire on a compact car.

"We had to lift him with a backhoe," he said.

Hog problem getting worse
No one maintains official records on hog kills in Georgia. But Department of Natural Resources biologist Kent Kammermeyer, who helped write a booklet on feral-hog problems in the state, said he has never heard of one as large as Hogzilla.

Holyoak said the plantation's previous record was a 695-pound hog shot several years ago. Enough wild hogs roam Holyoak's plantation that he has made it a side business to allow people to hunt them, but he said "Hogzilla" was too big to let someone else shoot.

"We killed it because we didn't want to take a chance of him getting away. Somebody else would have shot it," he said.

Feral hogs, popularly known as wild hogs, are domestic hogs that escaped from farms and began living off the land. They lay waste to corn and peanut fields and deprive more than 100 species -- including squirrels and deer -- of food.

"It's a big problem and it's getting worse," Kammermeyer said. "If you have a lot of hogs, you're going to have problems. Hogs are very aggressive. They run deer off and they can be dangerous if wounded or cornered."

Holyoak said he had to climb into a deer stand a few years back to escape a raging hog that circled around for six hours, foaming at the mouth and snapping at branches.

"They say bears get mad when you mess with their babies," Holyoak said. "Hogs don't need a reason to get mad and come after you."

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5540839/?GT1=4244
----------------------------------------------------------

sureshot
 
A feral hog that size, I can believe in.

A Good Old Boy who didn't call in all his friends as witnesses and didn't bother to get the head mounted, that's much harder! Too big my Aunt Fanny - donate it to the county museum, build a special trailer for it, whatever.
 
I'd be off digging that up immediately!! There seem an awful lot of excuses there - I'd have cut the head off if it had been so big even if I wasn't going to mount it on the wall (that said I was always picking up interesting bits of animals I find and I suspect its not everyone's cup of tea):

Town eats up tale of 'Hogzilla'

Photograph only proof of man's beastly claim

By BILL TORPY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/30/04



ALAPAHA — A generation ago, a shadowy creature supposedly was sighted limping across a highway here, causing newspapers to ruminate about a homegrown Bigfoot. Local residents embraced the mythical beast, and before you knew it, high school kids made T-shirts adorned with a peg-legged Bigfoot.

It's happening again. Ken Holyoak, owner of a fish hatchery and a hunting plantation, claims a 1,000-pound wild hog with 9-inch tusks was killed on his land. The 12-foot-long beast has been nicknamed "Hogzilla" and is now part of a growing local lore.

"It's caused a stir," said Darlene Turner, manager of Jernigan's, a hardware-gas station-general store about three miles from Holyoak's place. "People are calling from all over. They saw it on the Internet or heard about it on the radio. They say, 'Tell me about Hogzilla.' "

Holyoak, a man unafraid of publicity, is glad to talk about the huge hog. The 67-year-old proprietor of Ken's Hatchery and Fish Farms advertises — with a huge sign on a flatbed truck — a 5-pound "Georgia Giant Bream" he says was bred in his ponds.

Big fish, now big hogs.

"We're pretty sure [the hog] is a record," said Holyoak, sitting in a cluttered office. "His head is big as a compact car's tire, probably weighed 100 pounds," he said.

Holyoak said he might want to contact the Guinness Book of World Records for further recognition.

But folks in Alapaha, like Turner, or former Mayor Joe Dixon, who runs a seed business in this town about 20 miles from Tifton, smile when asked if they believe the tales. Both mention something about "fish stories."

For actual verification, you'll have to take Holyoak at his word. Or take the word of Chris Griffin, a plantation hunting guide who says he shot the boar June 12. All that's left is a memory of the beast and a photo with Griffin posing next to what appears to be a monstrous hog.

Holyoak said they buried the animal with a backhoe because the meat of an animal that large is not tasty. They didn't mount it because it was too big for normal mounting equipment. "You'd need someone who mounts elephants," he insisted.

Holyoak says he doesn't care who believes his claim. "There's always doubting Thomases," he said.

In a year or so, he said, he'd dig up the hog and bleach the skull and tusks. Then people will see, he said.

A matter of business

Holyoak expanded his business to wild hog hunts, and a glossy brochure shows a photo of his son, Jason, posing with a dead 695-pound boar. The brochure notes the hunters can surprise their prey from 20-foot-tall, fiberglass hunting stands with recliners. He thinks the hogs have gotten so big on his plantation because they steal his high-octane fish feed.

Darrell Anderson, CEO of the Lafayette, Ind.-based National Swine Registry, said farm-raised hogs grow as large as 1,300 pounds and measure as long as 7 feet along the backbone from head to tail. "If you hang them by their hind legs and you have the front legs stretching out, you'll get another four or five feet," he said.

A hog that size would probably be 5 years old, he said. The animals will grow tusks in the wild. Domesticated, their tusks are trimmed because they are dangerous.

Holyoak said several people had spotted a huge hog on the plantation, and he told hunting guide Griffin months ago to look out for the animal. "I said, 'If you see him, get him,' " he said.

Why? "Because he might leave [the plantation]," Holyoak said. "Why would you want a record to leave and let someone else get the praise?"

He says the big hog was felled by a single rifle shot to the heart. He said there's no way to tell how old it was, "They don't check in and fill out papers for you," he said.

Wreaking havoc

Farmers in the area have complained about feral hogs, which root around looking for food and knocking down crops and vegetation. Holyoak said a neighbor introduced them to the area. Others say it was Holyoak himself.

Feral hogs usually are domesticated hogs gone wild, said Kent Kammermeyer, a Georgia Department of Natural Resources biologist who was co-author of a booklet on feral hogs. Some have mated with descendants of Russian boar, which were brought to the South decades ago for hunting and escaped, Kammermeyer said.

"There is no pure strain of Russian boar in Georgia," said Kammermeyer.

The animals prefer to live near swamps and river bottoms and root around in the ground, digging holes that resemble bomb craters. They are prolific breeders.

"The blood is mixed, and you get these throwouts or throwbacks or whatever you call it," said Buddy Pafford, who owns a pawnshop/hunting goods store in Nashville. He believes Holyoak's claim and is sure that he'll maximize the story's publicity quotient.

Danny Jones of Albany, who is licensed to hunt alligators and says he trapped 200 feral hogs in one year, laughed when told Holyoak claimed Hogzilla had 9-inch-long tusks. "Sounds like a hoax to me," he said, laughing. "I don't know, a 1,000-pound hog? I'd like to see it."

Requires (free) registration:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0704/31hogzilla.html
 
Ga. Town Adopts Hogzilla for Festival

By ELLIOTT MINOR, Associated Press Writer

ALAPAHA, Ga. - With the local legend of Hogzilla spreading worldwide, residents of this tiny Georgia town have decided to feature the prodigious porker in their annual festival. Plantation owner Ken Holyoak said one of his hunting guides shot the 12-foot-long wild hog in June, but few actually saw it before it was buried. Besides the few witnesses, the only proof is a photo showing the guide with the beast dangling from a strap.

Holyoak claims the hog weighed 1,000 pounds and had 9-inch tusks. Now, residents plan to include a Hogzilla float, a Hogzilla informational booth and Hogzilla T-shirts in Alapaha's festival in November.

"We're going hog wild," said Darrell Jernigan of Jernigan's Farm Supply. The festival's previous themes include God Bless America, Saluting Our Firemen, and Our Indian Heritage. Residents around town smile when strangers ask them about the massive hog.

"Some say it's like fishing," Elizabeth Moore said. "The more you tell the story, the bigger the fish gets and the more you tell the story about Hogzilla, the bigger the hog gets."

Feral hogs, popularly known as wild hogs, are domestic hogs that escaped from farms and began living off the land. Holyoak said his plantation's previous record was a 695-pound hog shot several years ago.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../ap/20040823/ap_on_fe_st/hogzilla_celebration

[Emp edit: Green text on a grey background is likely to cause eyestrain so I've switched the colour tags for quote ones.]
 
There was rumoured to be a feral pot-bellied pig on the loose in the Irish countryside last year. Never did hear if it was caught - it had certainly acquired minor celebrity status in parts of the country but then the whole story went quiet...
 
Yeah, that was in Tipperary or Limerick somewhere down that area. Didn't hear the outcome myself but apparently it was quite a big one.

There was a report on UTV news last week about 4 pot bellied piglets on the loose in South Armagh, near Bessbrook. Some horrible person had dumped them on a country road. The SPCA caught 3 easily enough but the fourth one required squads of lads with nets chasing it before it was finally nabbed.
 
I bet that was quite a game! Pigs are very fast and agile, and a big one like as not would mow a prospective catcher down!
 
Over here in upside-down-land they actually have a magazine called Pig Hunter's Monthly. Our next door neighbour goes out hunting and has two pig-dogs. :(
 
bulldog said:
Over here in upside-down-land they actually have a magazine called Pig Hunter's Monthly. Our next door neighbour goes out hunting and has two pig-dogs. :(

Reminds me of Obelix and his fondness for Wild Boar...
 
Me too.....that and duck.

If the only animals in the world were pigs and ducks I would be quite content.
 
To be honest if you are going to call your pigs Houdini and McQueen what do you expect? ;)

Wild boar does disappearing trick

A wild boar has escaped from an abattoir in the Borders shortly before it was due to be slaughtered.

The runaway swine, dubbed Houdini, was last seen breaking out from its pen and heading into bushes on the outskirts of the town of Galashiels.

Lothian and Borders Police said the nine-stone beast was not likely to be dangerous unless cornered.

The animal's fate now rests on either evading capture or engendering the sympathy of the general public.

In 1998, the Tamworth Two pigs caused a media frenzy after they escaped from an abattoir in Malmesbury, Wiltshire.

Butch and Sundance were finally caught, but were saved from becoming sausages and given a new home to live out their days.

And in 2002, a black boar nicknamed McQueen went on the run after mounting a "great escape" from a slaughterhouse in Stirlingshire.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3654516.stm

Published: 2004/09/14 08:59:16 GMT

© BBC MMIV

another report:

Wild boar Houdini remains free

A wild boar dubbed Houdini after it scaled a fence at an abattoir in the Borders remains at large.

The nine-stone animal leapt to freedom from its pen at the slaughterhouse in Winston Road, Galashiels on Monday.

Despite the efforts of employees, the runaway boar scaled the fence and fled to nearby woods.

He was last seen by anglers on the River Tweed near Tweedbank. Animal rights campaigners say Houdini has earned the right to live.

Lothian and Borders Police say the boar does not pose a danger unless he is cornered.

The animal's fate now rests on either evading capture or engendering the sympathy of the general public.

In 2002, a black boar nicknamed McQueen went on the run after mounting a "great escape" from a slaughterhouse in Stirlingshire.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3658110.stm

Published: 2004/09/15 09:09:27 GMT

© BBC MMIV

Scaled a fence?
 
Yep, making pens pig proof isnt easy.

Methinks these slaughterhouses should be better prepared.

(or else they turn a blind eye rather than have to fight the boar...)
 
bulldog said:
Over here in upside-down-land they actually have a magazine called Pig Hunter's Monthly. Our next door neighbour goes out hunting and has two pig-dogs. :(

We have something similar here in the US, Boar Hunter Magazine. Rather interesting. For example, I never knew that hunting wild boar could be done as catch-and-release. That's even more testosterone laden than the Hawaiian practice of hunting pigs with just a knife.
 
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