Tamus
Well-Known Member
Tamas
If you read all the results of all the research carried out by Defra on the Ross/FOD boar they are as pure bred as any wild boar in europe.
I have no knowledge about other parts of the country.
Atb
Wayne
Which actually allows for quite a bit of chromosomal variation. I have read the literature.
And.... I said don't shoot the messenger
Frankly the purity of the blood is only a side issue but is one which many in the wildboar business like to pretend doesn't exist, trades descriptions issues there for the producers y'know and of course the hunters want to hunt "wildboar" and shooting someone's escaped porky the hairy pig doesn't sound nearly so manly as hunting wildboar, does it?
However, the issues I mentioned in my previous post are the core of the matter and the ramifications of ignoring those issues and trying to bring in new law which says they are a) wild and b)wildboar so as to then go on and allow for seasons etc, etc... would be a total morass of a concept which cannot be readily resolved.
For instance; When Sabateurs release a sow or sows with piglets which have not yet been tagged, as they have been known to do, who takes the blame for what? Indeed, will anyone be proven to be to blame for anything?... Usually not. If the hunter shot a tagged sow?... That is a clear no-no, even once weaned she is evidently someone's property and that "someone" (the owner) would be entitled to recompense or perhaps to be held responsible for the unlawful release of an animal into the wild and maybe the damage arising too???. What about if a hunter subsequently shot an untagged piglet from such a sow as I mention above? What about the responsibilty for the initial escape? How could you know whether a piglet was an untagged escaped one (which had a definite owner) or was bred from a free living sow (maybe several generations from captivity) etc, etc, etc... and so we have the convoluted morass of a situation which now prevails and which cannot readily be swept aside.
Basically a nationally agreed escaped hairy pig extermination scheme (agreed by all the relevant authorities and the producers) is about the only way to dodge all the issues and I'm fairly certain that's not going to happen either. It would cost far too much and though it might once have been contemplated, to prevent the spread of infection, in the days when home production of food was a protected interest, those days are gone.
BTW Our court decision, in Scotland, established that the term wildboar is simply not applicable. At best they are just farmed Boar which are free living but should not be and certainly do not exist as native wild fauna in Scotland. I know some guys will tell you that's nonsense but it actually is the reasoned case.
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