Road traffic collisions with boar.

[8x57]

I was reading earlier this morning about a boar collision that occurred in Haute-Vienne (France) on Tuesday morning that resulted in the deaths of a young family of four. The car collided with a large boar that crossed the road and careered into a tree resulting in the deaths of a 29 year old man his 26 year old wife and their two children aged 7 and 1. The report gives a number for wild animal collisions reported in France up until January 1st 2021 of 10,794 but it does not say over what period of time, presumably over 12 months.

It then got me thinking about the fatal incident on the M4 in Wiltshire a few years back where a car collided with a boar.
It also reminded me at about at around the same time one of our fellow site members (Ben) had a very serious collision with a boar in the Forest of Dean. Ben ended up extremely seriously injured in hospital. He had been booked to attend the H4H shoot a few days later and it was at the shoot that his friend Karen informed us of his accident. It's very remiss of me and long long overdue but I'm ashamed to say we seem to have lost contact, and neither Ben nor Karen have posted since then that I am aware of. Does anyone have any up dates on Ben's recovery and whether he has had the opportunity to extract his revenge on the boar population of the Forest of Dean.

 

[Heym SR20]

An adult boar can easily be the best part of 200 kg liveweight, and big males can easily be substantially more. And they are solid, in the same way that a muntjac is solid, but a muntjac is 20kg.

Hitting any object in a car is going to ruin your day. And I suspect that airbags don’t help - you are travelling at 50 mph, boar colliding with bumper triggering the airbags which go off in your face and basically remove all ability to control where your car ends up.

 

[Apthorpe]

It's frequently reported that the number of deer/car collisions in this country is about 80,000 per year. I'm surprised so few in France, although rural traffic level must be lower, and I suspect the motorways better fenced.

 

[willie_gunn]

With the tragic accident on the M4 it remains unclear whether the fatality was caused by the car hitting the boar, or by the then-stationary car being subsequently hit by an HGV.

Family of man killed after hitting wild boar on M4 'sorry' for lorry driver involved in crash

A LORRY driver broke down in tears as he apologised to the family of Raymond Green for hitting his car in a fatal collision last January.

www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk

 

[User00033]

An adult boar can easily be the best part of 200 kg liveweight, and big males can easily be substantially more.

You mean pounds, right?

 

[TomDeer]

I suspect the motorways better fenced.

The contrast between animal fencing on French motorways and here could not be starker. They actually have it!

 

[Heym SR20]

You mean pounds, right?

No Kgs. Some of the big wild boar on the continent get to 350 to 400 kgs with their guts out. They are big animals, especially in areas where there is lots of maize being grown for bio fuel.

 

[User00033]

A 400kg (gutted) wild boar? 880lb?

I’m always keen to learn things I didn’t already know, but this is pushing my BS button. Seriously if there are regular occurrences of properly wild S. scrofa reaching a gutted weight of 400 kg, then I will be forced to eat my smelly old hat.

 

[Lateral]

A 400kg (gutted) wild boar? 880lb?

I’m always keen to learn things I didn’t already know, but this is pushing my BS button. Seriously if there are regular occurrences of properly wild S. scrofa reaching a gutted weight of 400 kg, then I will be forced to eat my smelly old hat.

400kg boar are not "common", but they are certainly out there, it isn't BS !

 

[User00033]

Show me!

 

[sh1kar]

10 Huge Hogs You Have to See to Believe | Guide Outdoors

Boars of unusual size.

guide.sportsmansguide.com

I don’t think they get this big in Europe

s

 

[hogey]

Mr Google says about 110 Kg

 

[Bavarianbrit]

From German Wiki. I did the English translation for you below that.

Körpergewicht und Körpergröße​

Gewicht und Größe sind je nach geographischer Verbreitung sehr unterschiedlich, das Gewicht variiert außerdem je nach Jahreszeit. Als grobe Regel kann gelten, dass Körpermasse und Körpergröße von Südwesten nach Nordosten zunehmen. Vollkommen ausgewachsen sind Wildschweine ab ihrem fünften Lebensjahr; in Mitteleuropa haben Bachen dann eine Kopf-Rumpf-Länge von 130 bis 170 cm, Keiler erreichen eine Länge von 140 bis 180 cm.[4] Das maximale Lebendgewicht von ausgewachsenen Bachen in Mitteleuropa liegt bei rund 150 kg und das von ausgewachsenen Keilern bei rund 200 kg.[5] Mindestens fünf Jahre alte Bachen im Osten Deutschlands wogen ohne innere Organe („aufgebrochen“) zwischen 43 und 95 kg, Keiler ohne innere Organe zwischen 54 und 157 kg. Die höchsten Gewichte erreichten Bachen dort von Oktober bis März, Keiler von August bis Dezember.[6] Ein Schlachtgewicht oder Schlachtalter kann nicht definiert werden, da die Jagd auf wilde Tiere dem Zufallsprinzip unterliegt.

Body weight and height of wild boar.
Weight and sizes are very different depending on the geographical distribution, the weight also varies depending on the season. As a rough rule, body mass and height increase from southwest to northeast. Wild boars are fully grown from the age of five, in Central Europe females then have a head to tail length of 130 to 170 cm, male boars can reach a length of 140 to 180 cm. The maximum live weight of adult females in Central Europe is around 150 kg and that of adult "male" boars around 200 kg. At least five years old females in the east of Germany weighed between 43 and 95 kg without internal organs ("gralloched"), boars without internal organs between 54 and 157 kg. Females reached the highest weights there from October to March and boars from August to December. A slaughtered weight or slaughtered age cannot be clearly defined as the hunting for these wild animals is random.

 

[User00033]

Ah, the Internet story. That well-known tome of truthfulness and fact. And the old trick of sitting well back behind the animal. A bit like holding your fish well out in front of you for the obligatory photo.

Now I have seen some truly massive pigs in my time, particularly in northern Australia where we hunted them with great fervour. Thing is they were not wild boar by any stretch of the imagination, they were mongrel feral pigs originally crossed for size and meatiness before their ancestors gained their freedom. The Australians measure the pig’s weight with the guts in, unlike us here in New Zealand where we measure weight fully gutted. In all my years in both countries and a fair bit of time in the US I have never come across a truly wild pig that weighed more than 400lbs. The absolute biggest ones we shot in Australia were fed on grains, sugar cane and bananas and whatever else they could thieve, and they never got bigger than 400lb guts in. (We would shoot them with 12 gauge solids and drag them with the LandCruiser down to the mangroves for the crocs. Who would be waiting. Patiently.)

I’m sitting in the living room of our homestead typing this surrounded by the most hard-core internationally experienced pig hunters you will ever meet, and all of them think these monster pig stories are complete BS!

 

[London Jaeger]

I think next big species explosion in the UK inevitably seems to be feral pigs. A combination of the Government/DEFRA seeming to turn a blind eye to it and the obsession with rewilding with a particular emphasis on tree planting and reforestation, which will create perfect habitat for them. Obviously feral pigs and boar are not the same thing but we will likely see more of this in the next few decades. On the plus side we may get some driven boar hunts in the UK in our life time!

 

[8x57]

I don't know about 200Kg but I do know that a couple of friends have shot boar in the U.K. that they claim were well over 300lb in weight.

 

[Heym SR20]

Here you go - shot in mid Germany in 2017 - about 350 kg hanging up. And I have met the gentleman standing next to the pig. I am 6ft and he is taller than me.

 

[willie_gunn]

The contrast between animal fencing on French motorways and here could not be starker. They actually have it!

Although coincidentally if you travel further West down the M4 between the exits for Royal Wootton Bassett and Bristol there is a stretch that has been significantly fenced for many miles on both sides of the carriageway.

I was told by someone that this was undertaken by the Duke of Beaufort Hunt, though that may just be apocryphal.

 

[Lateral]

I’m sitting in the living room of our homestead typing this surrounded by the most hard-core internationally experienced pig hunters you will ever meet, and all of them think these monster pig stories are complete BS!

You must be correct then

 

[8x57]

It's frequently reported that the number of deer/car collisions in this country is about 80,000 per year. I'm surprised so few in France, although rural traffic level must be lower, and I suspect the motorways better fenced.

I too was surprised by the low number reported in France from the article I quoted. Call me an old sceptic if you like but either the number attributed to the U.K. is far too high or else the number given for France is far too low. Perhaps we are comparing apples to pears and the numbers have been collated in a totally different way, with one country recording all collisions and the other country only recording serious injuries or damage above a certain amount?

One thing that I have noticed in France on most of the busier regional routes (not motorways) is that the verges are cut well back from the roads. In the U.K. its common for woods to extend right up to the kerbside.