Injured Wild boar

Please do not take wild boar home.

It may seem the best option at the time, and it is hard to walk away, but from experience we know this is no longer the best option for the chances of the wild boar to survive long term.

The reasons to leave them alone, against all-natural reactions to want to help, are:

• Safety, wild boar, even piglets can deliver a nasty bite.
• Just like deer, wild boar, will often leave babies if they feel there is a threat (yes, even walking calmly through woods can seem a threat to wild animals). They will aim to draw the threat away from their young and will return to the babies once safe.
• As wild boar are not yet classified as 'Native', something we want to change this decade, once rescued they CANNOT be released. No, not even back to the area you found them.
• Wild rescues CANNOT help, for the above reason, and legal pressure from DEFRA, so you will be left with little support to raise a wild boar alone and nowhere for it to live.
• To 'keep' a wild boar you need a Dangerous Wild Animal (DWA) licence, without which you may face action from your local authority.

You can see there are many issues with rescuing wild boar; whilst we would love to open a wild boar rescue for exactly the reasons above, so we can help, unless anyone has a spare £100k this is a little way off, maybe one day.

The only realistic option, and best chance for the wild boar is to leave them alone. Yes, some may naturally die, but if taken captive they will often only be euthanised, but with the added stress of days of captivity.

If you find one genuinely injured, and safe to do so a vet will euthanise, otherwise you need to call the Forestry England team,  (https://www.forestryengland.uk/our-offices), who have rangers trained in dealing with scared injured wild boar humanely. 

 If the wild boar is on the road, call 999, for your safety, road user safety, and quickest help for the injured animal, and read more here -> On the Road.