Herd of wild boar found roaming free in remote Highland glen
A herd of wild boar are believed to have been illegally released in the same area four lynx were ‘abandoned’ last month.
The latest discovery was made when a local walker came across the group of feral pigs near Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park, just a few miles from where the big cats were spotted last month.
Efforts by Foresty and Land Scotland are now underway to capture the animals using a humane trap.
It is understood that, as with the lynx, straw was found near to where the animals were spotted, leading expects to believe they too have been released ‘illegally’.
Locals say they are convinced it is the same group behind the release of the lynx as they strive to ‘rewild Scotland back to what it used to be’.
But they fear that the ongoing ‘dumping’ of wild animals in the area will ‘set a precedent for other people looking to get rid of their unwanted animals’.
The herd of around nine pigs were seen roaming a forestry track between Insh and Glen Feshie at the weekend.
NatureScot, which is responsible for the release and management of wild animals in Scotland, said it was aware of ‘a number of sightings’ of feral pigs in the Insh area.
Farmers and crofters have reacted furiously to the release of more wild animals in an area of Badenoch just outside Kingussie
A number of wild boar have been found roaming in woods and on the public roads in the Insh and Glenfeshie areas
A herd of feral boars were set loose in the Highlands
A spokesman added: ‘Forestry and Land Scotland are leading on trapping these animals and we are liaising with partner agencies to ascertain the full circumstances of how they came to be in the area.’
It said the release of any pig into the wild in Scotland is illegal and the primary responsibility for controlling feral pigs lies with individual land managers. A licence to control them, however, is not required as they are not a protected species.
The Cairngorms National Park Authority said it was working closely with its partners, including NatureScot and FLS, ‘to ascertain the full facts on the ground’.
But in a statement, it said: ‘The animals appear to be relatively domesticated and it is likely that this is an illegal release. The Park Authority condemns any illegal release of animals in the strongest possible terms.’
It comes just weeks after four lynx were released in pairs in the nearby Dell of Killiehuntly area.
Experts condemned the release of the A-pex predators in sub-zero temperatures during some the coldest nights of the year.
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which helped capture the animals, claimed the illegal release was ‘reckless as they were ‘quite tame’ and ‘habituated to humans’ so would have been unable to fend for themselves.
Sadly, one of the lynx in the second pair died just hours after being captured. The other three remain in quarantine at Edinburgh Zoo with a Police Scotland investigation into their release ongoing.
Erin McBean, who runs holiday cottages in the Insch area believes there is no coincidence in the release of the wild boar and the lynx and is convinced that the same group is behind them as they look to ‘rewild Scotland back to what it used to be’.
She said: ‘I’m not opposed to it, but they have to be managed - one of them [lynx] died, that’s cruel. No one wants to see that.
‘But I think we will start to see a spate of animals being dropped off here, and even more exotic pets that they want rid off because they know the wildlife park is here and will think they’ll pick up the pieces.
‘My worry is this is just the start of things and it is going to have unintended consequences.
‘Abandoning animals like this is not just irresponsible, but could set a precedent for other people looking to get rid of their animals.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14382203/Rogue-rewilding-fears-herd-wild-boar-roaming-free-remote-Highland-glen.html
They can run at 30mph, measure 8ft from rump to snout and weigh more than 30 stone. Now up to 5,000 wild boar are marauding through the Highlands - killing livestock, wrecking farmland and terrifying those confronted by...The new Loch Ness Monsters
It was already getting dark when farmer Catherine Mclennan shone her torch into the woods on her 100-acre farm and lit up several pairs of eyes staring back at her.
She had gone to check on her beloved horses but, instead, found herself in an uneasy stand-off with a large herd of menacing-looking beasts.
‘There were dozens of them,’ she recalled. ‘I immediately switched off the light and stood thinking, “What am I going to do?” I put the light back on and the pigs looked at me before running off at a fair rate of knots.’
‘Pigs’ scarcely does justice to the sheer muscularity of the hulking brutes Mrs Mclennan encountered that night.
Measuring up to 8ft from rump to snout and with formidable tusks, these supercharged porkers were wild boar – thumping great anachronisms of the Scottish countryside, long since supposedly extinct but increasing both in size and number for years.
Landowners like Mrs Mclennan, 53, whose family has farmed in the hills above Drumnadrochit on the western banks of Loch Ness for seven generations, have seen nothing like it. Without guns of her own, she relies on a neighbour to shoot boar straying onto her land, including two last Christmas.
‘They looked like prehistoric animals –the size of them. I did feel sorry for them, but it’s the amount of damage they are doing. They are a menace.’
She added: ‘We are based on the Great Glen Way. There have been people coming across the wild boars and being chased by them. Someone will get killed or badly hurt. These wild boars are the real Loch Ness monsters – some are the size of a small car.’
Menace: Hunter Peter Gibbon crouched over a mammoth-sized boar
Some say the beasts’ extra bulk is explained by the addition of red meat to their diet – and lambing season provides plenty of that.
There are gruesome tales of the boars waiting for ewes to give birth before moving in to pick off their young.
Along with horses and beef cattle, the Mclennans used to farm sheep but sold off a flock of 150 in 2018, blaming feral pigs for killing and eating them. Ms Mclennan said: ‘We were coming across carcasses, some with the whole fleece rolled back and the carcass stripped to the bones and the back broken.’
Nor has she before witnessed the kind of yearly devastation wrought by the animals to her winter grazing as they have barrelled their way across her fields in search of food.
‘We are putting in thousands of pounds a year just reseeding pasture and keeping our animals safe,’ she said.
‘It is costing us a fortune because I’m also having to buy more winter feed for my cattle. What annoys me is this situation is not of our making, but the financial burden has been left entirely on our shoulders as landowners. It’s hardly fair.
‘The family has never experienced anything like this – the devastation. It’s out of control.’
In the last few years, gamekeepers have despatched hundreds of wild boar, but still they return, bold as brass, staking their claim in the ecosystem.
Their presence, say farmers and gamekeepers, has become ever more intrusive, spreading through much of Scotland’s rural landscape and leaving some to wonder if urban areas will be next.
The beasts, which are the descendants of escapees – either deliberately or accidentally released – from wild boar farms, usually roam freely in the Great Glen, an area of lochs, hills, moor and forests which stretches for 62 miles between Inverness and Fort William.
No one quite knows for sure how many there are – NatureScot, the Scottish Government’s wildlife and conservation agency, says numbers are in the ‘low thousands’, but locals say it’s closer to the 5,000 mark due to wild boar breeding with domestic or hairy pigs. And as the highly mobile groups spread out in search of fresh habitats, they are now said to be advancing on Inverness.
They have been spotted near Torvean, just a mile from the centre of the city, while staff at the Kings Golf Club have been working to divert them away. However, the animals can be hard to track.
Catherine Mclennan, whose farm has been devastated
Gamekeeper Robert Sanderson, who works as pest controller at Kings where he is also a member, claimed to have seen a boar that was around 37 stone (230kg) and warned the population was becoming ‘uncontainable’.
He added: ‘I have had reports of evidence of them at Dochfour and at least three wild boars in Torvean Quarry.
‘They are up at Contin and Alness and they are all the way down the Dores side of Loch Ness.
‘They will go everywhere and anywhere with tree coverage and fresh vegetation. There has been some success in controlling the boar with deer fencing. But on the whole, the boars can destroy land very quickly.
‘Imagine if you’ve ever seen a farmer’s field where it’s wet and 30 cows have been through it, how much of a mess that makes. Well, a handful of pigs will do that to the whole course in a night. They work like a tractor’s plough.’
Large areas of uprooted and disturbed soil are a tell-tale sign of the presence of wild boar which use their powerful neck muscles and long snouts to root around in search of food. The feral pigs are believed to have interbred with domestic pigs, and sows can produce litters of up to eight piglets, which can themselves breed after six months.
Countryside managers believe there are now at least four separate breeding populations of feral pigs, in the Great Glen, Lochaber, Dumfries and Galloway, and Ross-shire.
Mr Sanderson said they can be aggressive: ‘If you are walking a dog, then wild boars are not very friendly – but they will tend to run away. If they have piglets with them, then they are defensive and can get very aggressive.’
The rise in numbers has created a mini-industry with hunters travelling from across the UK and abroad to shoot boar with gamekeepers. One, Peter Gibbon, posted a picture on Instagram of a shoot with his mammoth-sized quarry, stating: ‘I certainly wasn’t expecting to be shooting something quite this big.’
Some shooters come from mainland Europe where the beasts are already on the loose in several cities. Police in Barcelona logged 1,187 calls about nuisance wild boars in a single year.
In Milan, a group of them on the street caused a fatal pile-up.
Berlin now employs full-time street hunters to keep the numbers down. There are an estimated 5,000 boars in the German capital and its suburbs, and they have quickly adapted to the rhythms of urban life. They have learned, for example, that the school bell may mean food while studies have shown they use zebra crossings to move around the city safely.
In Scotland, for now, it is in rural settings that the wild boar wreak havoc, damaging crops and threatening the spread of diseases such as mange, parasites and swine flu to domestic pig herds – much as a report almost a decade ago by NatureScot’s predecessor, Scottish Natural Heritage, warned they would if the problem were not addressed.
That report cited the example of Texas to illustrate what could happen if nothing was done.
There are now 2.5million ‘feral hogs’ in the American state and ‘eradication is no longer regarded as an option as pigs have spread and multiplied beyond control’, said the report. Some rural bodies now contend the boar population in Scotland may now have crossed that Rubicon.
Alex Hogg, chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA), said: ‘We have been warning about the expansion of feral pigs in parts of Scotland for well over a decade.
‘They pose a danger to ground-nesting wildlife, they can cause significant habitat damage and farmers are reporting issues with livestock.
‘Pigs are hunted in many European countries but once they begin to expand unchecked, their numbers rise quickly out of control. This is probably where we are now in Scotland because it has taken too long to act.’
The SGA welcomed recent efforts by NatureScot to produce guidance for landowners on managing wild boar – which includes advice on how to set up ‘corrals’ in which bait can be used to lure in whole family groups for shooting – but says more financial and practical assistance is needed.
‘We know of wildlife managers who have sustained injuries and members of the public and dog walkers who chance upon them at the wrong time run the risk of injury, too,’ said a spokesman.
‘Safe management now needs to be encouraged in strategic areas and there probably needs to be a public awareness campaign to help members of the public who meet feral pigs.
‘If farmers are losing livestock, they should be assisted to manage the problem because it requires a competence level and the right firearms, which most will not have.’
Quite how a beast reputedly hunted to extinction in Scotland by the year 1300 staged such a resurgence in the wild some 700 years later appears to lie in the short-lived fad for wild boar meat, which started in the 1980s before promptly receding in the 1990s.
In some cases, the boar are thought to have escaped from breeding farms by rooting under fences, while in others, keepers flouted the law by setting them free when the industry went into sharp decline.
Today’s wild boars are the descendants of those kept in captivity but their pedigree is indistinct because many of the farmed animals were crossed with domestic pigs to provide bigger litters.
Indeed, the Scottish Government doesn’t officially recognise the presence of wild boar, preferring the term feral pigs.
Yet the damage they wreak can be nothing less than medieval.
Lea MacNally, a stalker and farmer from Glengarry, told the Mail he first warned of the dangers posed by wild boars running uncontrolled more than 15 years ago. He recalled the horror of witnessing the beasts killing his days-old lambs. ‘They just ate them to bits,’ he said. ‘I have a friend not far away who had 40kg [six stone] lambs killed; all that was left was the skin.
‘They’re never going to eradicate them now, it’s gone too far. They are in the village in Invergarry. One guy had his garden trashed, got it fixed and six months later they came back and did it again.’
He added: ‘NatureScot has deerstalkers to cull deer, so they could be doing the same thing with wild boar or helping us, but for a long time they didn’t. There is advice now, but we still have to deal with the boar. Nobody is offering us compensation.’
NatureScot said it is unaware of reports of wild boar being near Inverness despite its HQ being opposite the Kings Golf Club.
Nevertheless, it is working with partners to count feral pig numbers and hopes to release accurate population data in February.
A spokesperson said: ‘We will analyse and consider the results before making any recommendations to Scottish Government.
‘The Scottish Government decided that the primary responsibility for controlling feral pigs should lie with individual land managers and this policy has been the approach since 2015.
‘NatureScot and Forest and Land Scotland have developed best practice advice to guide land managers in controlling feral pig populations safely and humanely.
‘A licence is not required, as feral pigs are not a protected species.’
Yet, managing these unco-operative beasts is further complicated by the fact that not all landowners are on board with the idea of eradicating them from our eco-system.
Rewilding enthusiast Paul Lister has made unsuccessful attempts to introduce wild boar to his Alladale Estate in Sutherland but called it a potential ‘keystone species’ and ‘a rotavator of the natural world’.
He said: ‘I think if we can live alongside them, however they came about, it’s just nice that there’s another beastie back in the forest.’
One of Catherine Mclennan’s neighbours, Highlands Rewilding which owns the Bunloit Estate, is equally enthusiastic about cultivating the animals it describes on its website as ‘shy in nature’, arguing that any negative interactions are rare and outweighed by the boar’s rejuvenating impact in clearing bracken and breaking up ground to promote the growth of new saplings and wildflowers.
Other conservationists have a more nuanced view. The Trees For Life charity, which owns the Dundreggan Estate in Glenmoriston, called for a national strategy,
saying the boar can bring ecological benefits to woodlands but in farmland ‘they can have unacceptable negative impacts which may need managing’.
But for farmers like Mrs Mclennan, time to find a sensible middle ground is running out.
This boar war is becoming attritional.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14215199/They-run-30mph-measure-8ft-rump-snout-weigh-30-stone-5-000-wild-boar-marauding-Highlands-killing-livestock-wrecking-farmland-terrifying-confronted-new-Loch-Ness-Monsters.html
Wild beasts that kill more people than sharks wreak havoc on school causing more than $150,000 worth of damage (We have a lot of them around here in Northern California, left behind by both the Russians and Spanish when they abandoned their colonies here in the 1800s -AA)
An invasion of wild hogs has wreaked havoc at a California school causing over $150,000 worth of damage.
Geyserville New Tech Academy in northern Sonoma County came under attack from the animals who ripped up the turf all over the campus.
The boars managed to dig holes in the ground over six inches deep, causing officials to set up barricades around the mess.
Images captured by the Press Democrat lay bare the devastation caused by the animals, with areas of grass completely ripped apart.
So far, those responsible have evaded the authorities. But Geyserville Unified School District Superintendent Deborah Bertolucci told SFGate they had seen six.
The boars managed to dig holes in the ground over six inches deep, causing officials to set up barricades around the mess
Images captured by the Press Democrat lay bare the devastation caused by the animals, with areas of grass completely ripped apart
According to Bertolucci, the damage on campus was perpetrated by two adults and four juvenile boars.
She said: 'At first, I thought my maintenance crew was doing repairs on our sprinklers. Then I realized, 'Oh no, it's the pigs.' It's crazy.'
Jason Lish, a supervisor of facilities maintenance at the school told the Press Democrat that they have hired a trapper to stop the animals.
He said: 'The only good thing about all this is they found a sewer cap I'd been looking for.'
The animals have frequently plagued the middle and high school destroying their soccer, baseball and softball fields last year.
Bertolucci said that the damage 'caused a lot of chaos with out sports programs', and they erected a $50,000 chain-link fence to keep the animals out.
Despite the fence, the animals resorted to ripping up grass at other parts of the campus, focusing on the main entrance.
Bertolucci added: 'The pigs just decided to attack other parts of our campus', dredging up a school garden where students had been planting roses.
The garden was supposed to help restore the native habitat and help attract pollinators but only lured in the wild pigs instead.
According to the outlet the population of wild pigs has boomed in the state and live in 56 out of the 58 California counties.
Feral hogs graze along a hiking trail in the Richland Creek wildlife management area in Texas
The Golden State isn't the only one struggling with the issue with officials across the country warning of a 'feral swine bomb' due to a huge increase in their numbers.
Wild hogs have now been seen in at least 35 states and are destroying farmers' crops, tearing up gardens and, in some cases, even attacking humans.
One longtime animal trapper, Craig Greene, recalled a terrifying encounter with the wild pigs in 2008.
He described hiding in his own three-feet tall cage, knowing there was no one nearby to save him, until they eventually ran off and he could escape.
'I know when they kill you, they'll eat you while you're screaming,' he said. 'I'd rather get eaten by an alligator.'
Wild pig attacks are relatively rare - but they still outnumber all species of shark attacks combined, research showed.
In 1982, feral swine populations were localized mostly to Florida, Texas and parts of California
But by 2023, feral swines have fully colonized the southern US, along with California
Between 2014 and 2023, there was an average of 5.8 fatal shark attacks worldwide compared to 19.7 wild pig attacks, AgWeb reported.
In 2024 alone, there have already been seven deaths globally from wild pig incidents, the outlet added - and revealed the number of humans killed had climbed steadily from 2000 to 2019 to a total of 172 deaths.
Dr. John Mayer, a research scientist and manager at the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, told AgWeb: 'Tigers, Indian elephants, Nile crocodiles, and venomous snakes kill more people than wild pigs, but wild pigs are certainly worse than bears, wolves, and all shark species put together.
'Wild pigs are nowhere near the worst of the worst, but they're far more dangerous than people believe,' he added, describing the vicious 'stab-and-slash' wounds inflicted by boars.
In 2019 a Texas caregiver, 59, was mauled to death by a pack of wild hogs while outside the home of the elderly couple she looks after, before being partially eaten.
And the potential for dangerous encounters between pigs and humans is set to increase as the land animals used to have free reign on is developed.
Pigs now exist in all 67 Florida counties and wreak the most havoc in inland areas in the middle of the state.
Wild hogs also have the potential to doom the US pork industry, which supports more than 600,000 American jobs and generates $178 billion in sales on a yearly basis, according to the National Pork Producers Council.
The animals in Asia have been spreading a fatal disease for pigs called the African Swine Fever. After it was first reported in northeastern China in August 2018, it caused the death of over one million pigs, according to Reuters.
Experts warn that if this disease crossed the ocean to the US, it would have a devastating effect.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13775089/wild-beast-california-school-damage-chaos.html
Wild hogs, an invasive species of pig, were first brought to Florida by Spanish settlers in the 1500s.
David Schmidt and Junior Coursey load a pig into the transport trailer as part of the Harris County feral hog trapping program at Barker-Addicks reservoir in Houston
Feral pigs roam near a Mertzon, Texas ranch
A helicopter's silhouette is seen as it flies over over a dozen wild hogs running through a dirt patch
A hunter on a HeliBacon helicopter hog hunting tour near Bryan, Texas
A hog-hunting company called Ashcraft Aviation offers tourists and gun enthusiasts the opportunity to snipe the animals from one of his 'hog-copters'
'Imagine you got a really drunk guy, gave him a backhoe and told him to dig up a field. That's what hogs do to your land,' hog hunter Andy Butler told DailyMail.com, while sharing photographs of the destruction (like the above)
Hunting a hog is no simple task. Although they normally travel in packs of around 20 to 35, Butler said he has come face-to-snout with a group of hogs - known as a sounder - numbering in the triple figures.
‘We have seen groups of 120 and that’s not uncommon,' he told DailyMail.com. 'You will see these huge groups. It’s pretty eye-opening.’
On top of their vast numbers, hogs are also hard to track down due to their nomadic, nocturnal nature, their excellent sense of smell, density, and intelligence.
People hunting hogs beside Ryan Ashcraft, who offers tourists and gun enthusiasts the opportunity to shoot the beasts from his 'hogcopter' in southern Texas
Ashcraft Aviation started as a means of herding cattle from above for the hunter's southern Texas family ranch
Weimar, Texas based hog hunter Andy Butler shared photographs showing the damage hogs have done to farmer's land. 'The field on the right side of the photo has been obliterated by hogs,' he told DailyMail.com
Feral hogs are among the hardest species to hunt.
‘They are extremely tough animals - very resilient - which is why they thrive so well,' he told DailyMail.com.
'They have got a really, really good sense of smell, it’s really incredible. Some of the boars can smell sows in season up to five miles away.
'They can definitely smell your scent if you are trying to stalk them. If the wind changes and they get a whiff of your scent, they would be gone instantly.'
Despite being an invasive species brought to the US via Florida in the 1500s by Spanish colonizers who raised them for chorizo, Wetzel said they are inherently 'very evasive'.
‘They are actually very smart, so they can be pretty difficult to track down,' he said.
Like Butler, Wetzel, who is based just south of Oklahoma City, uses cameras to determine a sounder's movements before heading to a rumored hog territory.
‘We also use feeders full of corn to try to entice them. They come in and eat the corn,' he added.
A hog hunter approaches the hogcopter ahead of a session with Ashcraft Aviation
Israeli city was overrun with BOARS after officials banned culling them
- Dozens of beasts took up residence in the northern coastal city of Haifa
- The wild pigs rip up vegetation and rummage through bins
The wild pigs rip up vegetation and rummage through bins, which sparked a fierce debate between animal rights defenders and those in favour of driving them out or killing them.
The city nestles at the foot of the Carmel Mountains, home to boars, foxes, jackals and other animals, all protected by Israeli law and boars have long entered Haifa at night looking for food and water.
Dozens of wild boars took up residence in northern Israel's coastal city of Haifa after the city banned culling them
The pigs rip up vegetation and rummage through bins, which sparked a debate between animal rights defenders and those in favour of driving them out
Residents say they became increasingly brazen, blocking traffic, digging up public gardens and even overturning large refuse bins.
Haifa mayor Einat Kalisch-Rotem defended the ban on killing them, saying they are part of nature.
When a group of journalists visited, a group of boars crossed a road in mid-morning, unbothered by traffic or the film crew following them.
One amorous male even mounted a female in a public garden.
Haifa
Wild boars gather in a residential area in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
'They turned our lives into a nightmare,' one woman shouted.
Ilana Dihno, a Haifa resident and one of the organisers of a protest against the boars later this month, said the animals used to stay out of the city until nightfall.
'Now they are walking around in broad daylight,' she said.
'We chose to live in a city, but we live in a jungle.'
Boars, a species of wild pig found across Europe, Asia and North Africa, can grow up to two metres (more than six feet) in length - although most are smaller.
They primarily feed on plants, berries and fruits but are adept scavengers and thrive on human leftovers.
Ilana Dihno, a Haifa resident and one of the organisers of a protest against the boars later this month, said the animals used to stay out of the city until nightfall
Haifa municipality has sought to encourage tolerance of the wild boars, even before a new left wing mayor banned culling
'They come to our houses and gardens. We're scared for our children,' said a woman who gave her name only as Avital.
'Some kids might scare the piglets which might aggravate (the older boars) and make them attack children.'
She wanted to see the animals forced from the area completely, saying the municipality had done 'nothing'.
Haifa, Israel's third-largest city with around 300,000 people, is mainly Jewish with a significant Arab minority.
Both Jewish and Islamic religious rules ban the eating of pigs, including boars.
They have no natural predators in Haifa, so their numbers can grow rapidly.
Until Kalisch-Rotem's 2018 victory, the city periodically allowed hunters to shoot them to keep numbers down, said Shlomit Shavit, a spokeswoman for Israel's nature and parks authority.
But the new leftwing mayor banned the cull.
She has called for other solutions to keep the animals outside the city, such as ensuring they have regular food supplies in the wild.
Haifa municipality has also sought to encourage tolerance of the animals, publishing a song on its Facebook page in which a group of children profess their love for the boar.
'A Haifa girl isn't afraid of two tusks and hair like a brush, she says good morning to the neighbourhood boar,' the song goes.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7796035/Boorish-boars-hog-highways-Israels-Haifa.html
Berlin Police block the road to allow a herd of more than 20 wild boar to cross in the Zehlendorf district with piglets leading the charge
The pigs stampede across the road
There are believed to be around 3,000 wild boar living in Berlin, the wild boar capital of Europe
