Sounder advice please

[ELMER FUDD]

Well said, If you shoot the lead sow younger gilts will come into season and produce young. There's a reason why through out Europe that they don't shoot sows with dependent young. It's that its bad boar management. Managing boar is not like managing deer. Strange how people are so keen on shooting boar and know so little about boar habits, breeding and group dynamic.

Unfortunately, we shoot them as pests,not quarry.

The majority of the landowners want to see the boar gone and ask you to shoot everything on sight.

If its a single sow with followers that are obviously dependant then yes we tend to leave these but if there are two sows then one sow may become a target or if the followers are big enough then we take these.

Pigs are very social animals and you could have 3 sows laying down to feed their young and you can see them feeding from different sows.

What happens when you shoot a milky rabbit and it has dependant young, they probably all die so no difference to the pigs although young pigs will start to root at a very young age.

In Sweden you have natural boar which would be managed but the boar with us are feral crossbred Iron age/Tamworth pigs which were released and have now been allowed to breed out of control and which cause masses of damage to farmland and public areas.

They have no close season and are classed as pests and a landowner will soon find someone else to shoot them if you do not respect their wishes.

Sport shooting and pest control shooting are two different entities, one you do for sporting purposes where you have a choice on whether you shoot or not but pest control is normally for damage limitation to land or crops and you shoot or get moved on and someone else does it.

It may be at some time they will get a close season but I can't see that happening any time soon as they cause so many problems and are in the local newspapers on a weekly basis due to their behaviour.

 

[Penyard]

Unfortunately, we shoot them as pests,not quarry.

The majority of the landowners want to see the boar gone and ask you to shoot everything on sight.

If its a single sow with followers that are obviously dependant then yes we tend to leave these but if there are two sows then one sow may become a target or if the followers are big enough then we take these.

Pigs are very social animals and you could have 3 sows laying down to feed their young and you can see them feeding from different sows.

What happens when you shoot a milky rabbit and it has dependant young, they probably all die so no difference to the pigs although young pigs will start to root at a very young age.

In Sweden you have natural boar which would be managed but the boar with us are feral crossbred Iron age/Tamworth pigs which were released and have now been allowed to breed out of control and which cause masses of damage to farmland and public areas.

They have no close season and are classed as pests and a landowner will soon find someone else to shoot them if you do not respect their wishes.

Sport shooting and pest control shooting are two different entities, one you do for sporting purposes where you have a choice on whether you shoot or not but pest control is normally for damage limitation to land or crops and you shoot or get moved on and someone else does it.

It may be at some time they will get a close season but I can't see that happening any time soon as they cause so many problems and are in the local newspapers on a weekly basis due to their behaviour.

How many inaccuracies can you fit in one post? Clearly you are looking to justify your approach to boar shooting.

Jagare makes a valid point over making matters worse if you shoot mature sows out of sounders, subordinate animals then come into heat.

As for the dean boar being Tamworth and Iron Age pigs rather than boar, you are wrong. The escapees from Deep Dean in the late 90's were true wild boar with some asiatic boar blood in them. This probably explains the number of medals taken from the area. The ones dumped in Staunton in the early 2000's I have no idea about but have shot pigs that end of the forest and they look like true boar to me.

I have only ever come across one farmer who insisted I shot sows with dependent young. I refused and explained why. I still have plenty of shooting.

If if you really think this is just pest control then why are you selling it on here?

 

[Bavarianbrit]

The reason the lead sow is not shot in Europe is-
She controls the breeding cycle of the whole sounder so that they breed from November and the piglets come then to the woods in March after the bad winter climate has passed (3months+3weeks+3days is the rule of thumb used for the pregnancy duration).
If she is gone the breeding of the sounder pack looses this guidance and they get concieved at different times of the year.
There is a method to their madness.

 

[ileso]

wild boar dissapeared from the english country side due to bad management in the first place... do you guys really want to go down that road again?

 

[ELMER FUDD]

I do not have to justify my actions on pig shooting, I shoot them as feral pests.

I have never said we shoot the lead sow, I said if there are two sows we may take one but tend to shoot followers and not lone sows with dependent followers.

People like yourself consider the pigs as sport and probably look for trophies, I do not, any person I take out I do so for them to be able to try for a boar and that person knows he can shoot as many as he likes without having to pay extra for shots and there are no trophy fees even if he shoots something with massive tusks.

I also allow them to take any deer if it is in season and during legal lighting periods also included in their fee and again regardless of what trophy they carry. This is pest control,damage limitation and its what the landowners want. I must be doing something right as I have 9 other landowners to see when I get the time. I was also invited to a meeting in the dean with landowners to discuss pig management and what I offer landowners.

As for the breed of pig, I was informed that the pigs were Iron age/Tamworth crosses and not true boar but no matter what they are they are none indigenous and regarded as feral pigs,pests

 

[Penyard]

Elmer, we have hyjacked Lion George's thread!

why don't you go and start one called 'Wild boar are really Tamworth crosses, are only vermin, were never native to U.K. and killing sows with dependent young is no different to shooting a milky rabbit'?

BTW, I cull the boar on my ground hard, I just don't shoot sows with dependent young.

 

[timbrayford]

To clarify about nativeness of Wild Boar to the UK here is the internationally recognised definition:-

Native species (indigenous)A species, subspecies or lower taxon, occurring within its natural range (past and present) and dispersal potential (i.e. within the range it occupies naturally or could occupy without direct or indirect introduction or care by humans)IUCN 2000

In respect of the FOD Boar the historic record places them there as late as the medieval period so clearly this places within the category of a native species re-occupying its former range as an accidental reintroduction.

The fact that they may have some domestic pig input is a little more problematic.

I used to farm free range Tamworths, the are an unimproved breed descended directly from Wild Boar without the input of Chinese pigs unlike other native domestic breeds. However to what extent do you permit input of exotic genes before you dismiss a creature as a "feral hybrid" e.g. The "pure" Red Deer on Rhum contain exotic genes from Barbary Red deer, it is inconceivable that these genes arrived without the input of mankind so using the strictest definition of a pure native wild animal the status of these deer looks distinctly dodgy.

There is an easy commonsense approach that I can suggest:- If it looks like a Wild Boar, acts like a Wild Boar and so do its progeny for succeeding generations then it is a true Wild Boar, whatever microscopic examination of its DNA might reveal.

 

[Orion]

There is an easy commonsense approach that I can suggest:- If it looks like a Wild Boar, acts like a Wild Boar and so do its progeny for succeeding generations then it is a true Wild Boar, whatever microscopic examination of its DNA might reveal.

In a nutshell that would appear to be a satisfactory working definition.

Dr Goulding appears to agree: http://www.britishwildboar.org.uk/index.htm?purity1.htm

 

[8x57]

I wouldn't know how to identify a wild boar, but I know a livid boar when I see one.

 

[ELMER FUDD]

They look like wild boar, act like wild boar and have all the traits of a wild boar including taste but until they get some official protection and season then they are always going to be regarded as invasive pests.

Even if they get a season etc, the landowners will still regard them as a pest causing damage and until their numbers are reduced to a level they are going to be shot 365 days of the year.

If you tell a landowner that you are now going to stop shooting as you are following a self imposed close season and the landowner continues to get their crops/ fodder fields ruined you will return to find someone else now has your shooting.

There are many people out knocking doors to try and get their own shooting for the pigs who don't care if someone has been there for years or not and they are the ones who will pick up land where the current shooter doesn't do as requested by the landowner.

I was talking with a guy last year who was reluctant to shoot the sows or followers and the landowner said he wasn't shooting enough and the deer (which were out of season) were also causing damage and this resulted in the farmer allowing others to shoot the land who were willing.

The farmer never answered his calls and I advised him to go and see the landowner and straighten things and the result was the farmer said he would allow both concerned to shoot the land.

Penyard, I only said I was informed that the pigs in the dean were Tamworth cross, they are vermin albeit large tasty vermin, I didn't say they were never native to the U.K as wild boar were native up until 300 years ago when the last one died or was killed which would mean released pigs and their future offspring are not indigenous to this country.

If you look up indigenous you will see it means, naturally existing in a place or country rather than arriving from another place.

These pigs/boar originated from two separate released groups which eventually cross bred again and this can be clearly seen in some of the pigs which either have long snouts and others which have a smaller snout.

Milky rabbit was just a way of demonstrating that you probably shoot hundreds of rabbits which are milky does and have dependant kits back in their burrow and think nothing off it so why the concern for the pigs when they cause so much damage and are also regarded as pests.

At least if you shoot a sow her followers will latch onto another sow and will even look after themselves being able to root after several weeks, it also takes a breeding sow out of the system which would probably be pregnant again and any of the followers being sows wouldn't breed that year.

 

[ileso]

to be fair as far as purity, ITs my opinion that in this day and age it is a very rare thing to find wild boar anywhere in europe that doesnt have some pig in its making. people have been rearing pigs everywhere we go, pigs escape, accidents happen the genes get out there... just saying.
as far as the nativeness of the animal etc... as someone mentioned they were there before people came along and exterminated them... it tends to make that animal a natural part of the landscape even if it was missing for a couple of hundred years. The forests and the landscape suffered from the loss.
Even in the rest of europe the range of the wild boar has waxed and waned over the centuries. Where i live it was missing for a couple of hundred years as well. It wasnt introduced but expanded naturally back into its former territories from across the border, same goes for the roe deer.
I am not going to tell anyone how they should manage or mismanage their game in other countries though. but it would be a pity to exterminate them again from mismanagement, especially seeing as many of you lot pay quite a bit to hunt them in other parts of europe when you have them on your home turf. i really dont understand why you dont hunt them in drives and manage numbers the way its done everywhere else. Over on this side of the channel most hunting syndicates pay farmers for their loss or even pay them to grow feed crops so the animals stay put for the hunting season... theres way more money to be made in a sensible management plan that caters to hunting than in eradication.
But like I said, i am not from there, what I say has no weight. I just cant see wild boar in the same category as asian hornets, mongoose, eucalypts, american vison, american crayfish, raccoons etc in europe or back in oz for example with feral pigs, goats, deer,cats, dogs, water buffalo, rabbits, foxes, carp, rats, canetoads and some others i have not mentioned dont belong there because they were never ever there historically. the environment cant cope with them. they are proper bona fide pests to be eliminated.
From my understanding the FOD is quite a large area, two or three drives a year will bring down the numbers, as well as high seat shooting for trophies. Surely the hunting associations there can see theres money to be made with all the boar you have. And if there are feral iron age pigs about, cull those to purify the boar bloodlines in my opinion.

 

[timbrayford]

To reiterate:- *Native species (indigenous)
A species, subspecies or lower taxon, occurring within its natural range (past and present) and dispersal potential (i.e. within the range it occupies naturally or could occupy without direct or indirect introduction or care by humans)IUCN 2000

In respect of a native or if you prefer indigenous species arriving from another place this can be by natural spread or by either deliberate or accidental reintroduction. Also just because a species has periodically been absent from its natural range does not stop it being native to that area. e.g. Pere David's Deer is a native to China and has been reintroduced there after being absent for many years.

 

[JTO]

Some of the comments on this thread remind me of some pigeon shooters who say. "Let the numbers build up until we can make a good bag", while the crop gets hammered. Someone else mentioned boar being 'overshot' in an area. How can an agricultural pest be 'overshot'?

 

[Penyard]

Some of the comments on this thread remind me of some pigeon shooters who say. "Let the numbers build up until we can make a good bag", while the crop gets hammered. Someone else mentioned boar being 'overshot' in an area. How can an agricultural pest be 'overshot'?

Maybe ask the blokes with dogs and pointy sticks who managed to make them extinct last time?