Beastwatch Uk

There was at least one big black cat around here in SE Suffolk a few years ago - several people spotted it. But I've not heard of a sighting for quite a while

When I farmed in Tuscany we were surrounded by wild boar - they are truly scary creatures and will kill humans if they or their young are threatened. They also regularly killed dogs. Apart from that, they are incredibly destructive; it was almost impossible to keep them out of the sheep pastures although we spent a fortune on sheep fencing which was buried half a metre. A family could dig their way into a field and make a hole in it the size [ie area] of a swimming pool overnight. Releasing them into the wild here is really irresponsible; tho the British wild boar tends to be a hybrid and rather smaller and less agressive than the Mediterranean version. The piglets are very cute tho - they look like animated humbugs

I was once chased by a huge male boar which my dog disturbed by a stream on a hot day - a very scary experience. It was lucky I was fit - I couldn't run that fast now :o
 
The Italians do shoot them, don't they, Headstrong? If my decreasing memory bank serves me right, they have a pop at most things, but apparently boar is still a fairly serious adversary. I imagine that the great rush as - what, 300 lbs?? - of porcine fury hurtles at you is really terrifying!
 
Originally posted by krizon@Sep 20 2006, 05:41 PM
The Italians do shoot them, don't they, Headstrong? If my decreasing memory bank serves me right, they have a pop at most things, but apparently boar is still a fairly serious adversary. I imagine that the great rush as - what, 300 lbs?? - of porcine fury hurtles at you is really terrifying!
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Indeed. The estate next to ours - huge, with a village included - was sold to a consortium of Swiss boar hunters. I went with the boar researchers from Univ of Rome who lived in the farm above ours to watch a hunt once - medieval, awesome, chilling.

It was a beautiful autumn day in heart-stoppingly lovely country, deeply wooded remote valleys. We stood on a hill out of harms way, and heard the rough-haired terrier-like dogs which go in after the boar to flush them to the hounds and guns find the main 'gathering' at rest, and the noise from across the valley was amazing - huge jaws snapping, bellowing, barking and yelps... utter pandemonium, Some of the little dogs were killed and some horribly injured, we neard later. Once the boar were on the move - around 30 of them - the boar-hounds took up the chase... Several boar were killed that day - I went to the 'boar butchery' a special building in the village to watch the skinning and debaunching, and let me tell you the smell of a mature male boar is indescribable. I've got a few transparencies I took that day somewhere...

Our estate was officially a wildlife preserve, but by the second winter we had to get dispensation to have a boarhunt since they were just over-running us. Each sow can litter about 10 and they have two litters a year if food is plentiful... Yes they are pretty serious stuff. The really frightening thing is the size fo their jaws, and esp of their teeth.

Alfredo the ancient vineyard worker told of the night he got trapped in the castle's old pheasantry enclosure with a family of boar and took refuge up a fruit tree. The boar tried to pull him down and he kept slashing at the lead one with his billhook. He injured it and the rest smelling blood went into a frenzy and killed and devoured it. He stayed up the tree till they dispersed, and the sun came up...

I lived for a while in the Languedoc as well, they still hunt boar there and in the Pyrenees, and in fact in all forested areas of France like Compiegne. It's consider the most noble form of hunting, in Europe, as it's still so dangerous.

There's a wonderful sequence of a boarhunt in one of my favourite films, "La Reine Margot"
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=13352
 
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