Wild Boar Management

Does a wild boar population need managing? 

There is very little debate surrounding this question in a modern day civilized Britain. There are too many humans, and too many residential settlements, which lead to conflict, positive and negative, to ever be a time where a species such as wild boar can be left to self-manage their population.

But where there is a real debate is the methods deployed to control a truly ‘wild’ wild boar population. We do not believe shooting is always the right solution and have urged the Forestry Commission of the Forest of Dean to consider, and trial, more humane and effective methods for many decades such as contraceptive control.

''The short-term aim of the Forestry Commission’s culling of feral wild boar is to stop the upward growth in the population on the public forest estate.  Once that short-term target has been achieved the cull will look to hold the population and then start bringing it back down towards the target figure.  To support the cull the Forestry Commission initially increased the team of wildlife rangers from 3 to 4, and then in the last year to 6.''

(www.forestryengland.uk/article/more-information-about-wild-boar as of 21st September 2018)

Primary responsibility for feral wild boar management lies with local communities and individual landowners. See the file 'Feral Wild Boar in England: An action plan (Defra 2008)' below. 

Let us look at the different methods individually and discuss their pros and cons, below is a link to some ‘best practices issued by the The Deer Initiative: