Is this Wild Boar damage

Just look for slot marks or badger prints in the aftermath, simples. I have never seen badgers do damage that looks like that but am aware it happens sometimes, just not where I live. Boar on the other hand do that sort of stuff most nights, including in my bloody mowing grass last week!
 
First of all are there pigs in the area?
Having seen pig damage in woodland on the Kent/East Sussex border they can certainly turn over a huge area very quickly and then move on. Badgers as we know will travel to feed but within a certain range. A sounder of pigs can be there one minute and gone the next and travel several miles overnight.
If its pig damage, which it looks to me as if it might be, one would expect to see some spoor, footprints nearby or on the area where the digging has taken place. Badgers will also leave footprints and will also sometime take a dump whilst digging out a latrine nearby.

Badgers can do a lot of damage looking for grubs, worms etc, but Boar can also make a huge impact on pasture land looking for the same food and create similar diggings.
Maybe a few trail cameras up will help. If its Boar in the area, try baiting them if your allowed. Any surrounding area will show signs too. Hair on low fences, fences lifted up. Any water nearby may have a wallow, look for rubs against trees.

I hope you get to the bottom of it. Would be good to know if its Boar.
 
How many people saying it’s boar have actually shot a boar in the uk ?
Me.

And I said it looked similar to the boar damage I have seen in the Forest of Dean and in my permission in Sussex. Rolled over turf over a large area.

The turf I have seen in FOD and Sussex was tussocky stuff and much deeper rooted than that manicured surface in the OP so it was obviously much thicker. The type of grass mat is what I imagine would determine the depth of the damage.

It could well be badgers, they are perfectly capable but the badger damage we have in our little paddocks has been a few inches in diameter and similarly deep and I figured they were after bees nests. Often used later as precision poo spots.

I also said the obvious thing to do was look for trotter prints.

Pity the OP hasn’t been back to let us know the denouement after all this time.

Alan
 
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Me.

And I said it looked similar to the boar damage I have seen in the Forest of Dean and in my permission in Sussex. Rolled over turf over a large area.

The turf I have seen in FOD and Sussex was tussocky stuff and much deeper rooted than that manicured surface in the OP so it was obviously much thicker. The type of grass mat is what I imagine would determine the depth of the damage.

It could well be badgers, they are perfectly capable but the badger damage we have in our little paddocks has been a few inches in diameter and similarly deep and I figured they were after bees nests. Often used later as precision poo spots.

I also said the obvious thing to do was look for trotter prints.

Pity the OP hasn’t been back to let us know the denouement after all this time.

Alan
Agree there would be slots if it’s boar. Seen a lot of this with the badgers after leather jackets
 
There is talk of looking for slots. Up where I feed the boar you would be hard pushed to see a boar hoof print. The ground is quite soft but I bet I could go up there now and not make out a clear boar print. And yes I have shot one or three. Also plenty of deer droppings in the forest but rare to find boar poo.. Their rooting about is another story.
 
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