General

The wild boar is found in Europe, Asia, and parts of North Africa.

The boar can live in groups up to fifty.

The wild boar's mating season takes place during the winter months.

The boar can have two to twelve babies in a litter.

They are born usually between March and May.

The piglets are not full grown until the age of four or five years.

Wild boar can live to 25 years old.

Wild boar are very wary and shy from human contact. Wild boar sows can be aggressive to one another when establishing dominance within the group or when feeding, aggression involves pushing and biting. Mature males are most aggressive to each other during the autumn rut when potentially fatal injuries can be inflicted from their sharp tusks. Wild boar are not dangerous to people provided they are left alone.

Habitat

They are fast runners and good swimmers.

Boars like to live in oak forests so they can eat acorns in the autumn.

During the rest of the year, boars eat roots, grass, fruits, mushrooms, bugs, eggs, and dead animals.

If there is plenty of food, the boars will stay in a 10 square mile territory.

Reproduction

Boars can have 3 litters each year with up to 14 babies each time. After 3 months, the babies are weaned (can find their own food), but may still stay with the mother. The fathers live by themselves.

The mother builds a stick and grass nest on the ground. Her babies live there for 1 week until they are big enough to follow her around.

They are born with light brown fur that has white stripes from head to tail. When they are 4- 6 months old, they turn a cinnamon brown color. At 1 year old, they are full-grown and have black fur.

Social Groups and Behaviour

Wild boar and feral pigs prefer to live in small social groups referred to as 'sounders'. Sounders are matriarchal and organised around a core of two or three mature reproductive females with their most recent litters, plus the surviving young and sub-adults from previous litters.

Group size varies between 6 and 30 animals. Mature males tend to be found in the vicinity of the group only during the breeding season. Outside the breeding season, the mainly solitary males will tolerate the presence of each other but aggression increases in winter with competition for females.

Wild boar are primarily nocturnal animals irrespective of sex, age, or season, although they may be more diurnal in times of food shortage. The daytime is spent sleeping in areas of thick cover in day nests, which are saucer shaped depressions in the ground which may be lined with leaves.

Wild boar often have one long rest period in dense cover, during the day, that can last more than 12 hours. A short period of grooming on awakening, followed by four to eight hours of feeding during the night. Nocturnal feeding may be interspersed with a short rest phase. The onset of the daily cycle of activity is related to the time of sunset.

Wild boar have poor eyesight and can only recognise blue from the three primary colours. However, since blue colours are most easily seen under poor light conditions (typically the time when wild boar feed), so an ability to discriminate blue is possibly an advantage.