Deep in the heart of the forest, the evidence of their existence is easy to see. Along the edges of a woodland ride, the soft green turf has been given a thoroughly good going over, exposing the dark soil beneath. And, where the path crosses a narrow stream, I find a shallow bowl of mud pockmarked with trotter tracks and a tree trunk turned scratch-post, barkless and buffed to a shine by a bristly backside. Wild boar at work.
After providing the main course at one too many medieval banquets, these primitive pigs – ancestors of our domestic animals – disappeared from British woods hundreds of years back. But, beginning around 30 years ago, a number of them escaped (or were deliberately released) from boar farms to rewild parts of the…
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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2023