A very large boar has been seen on a few occasions over the past few years in the Ross on Wye area and it might just have fallen to a hunter.

A big boar was recently shot in that area that weighed 234kg and had 20cm tusks and is probably the largest UK boar so far shot.

http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/ne...ire_countryside.html

Seeing as 99.99% of the boar in the UK have some domestic pig breed as part of their genetic mix, should they not be correctly branded as feral pigs rather than the grandiose title of wild boar?

I realise it takes away some of the kudos from the hunting of them but lets not be fooling ourselves here.

quote:

Originally posted by H5:
Seeing as 99.99% of the boar in the UK have some domestic pig breed as part of their genetic mix, should they not be correctly branded as feral pigs rather than the grandiose title of wild boar?

I realise it takes away some of the kudos from the hunting of them but lets not be fooling ourselves here.

You may well be right but the boar in this area are from pure Eastern European stock and first escaped in 1997. Other boar in the south of the Forest of Dean almost certainly do have a touch of domestic pig in them but this animal would be too old for there to be much chance of mixed blood.

Out of interest the CIC score is 123.7 which just beats the previous UK record by 1.2 points. That boar also came from the same area.

I think I remember reading that most Western European wild boar have dubious genetics so perhaps we had better disregard all of those as well.

quote:

Originally posted by sewinbasher:
You may well be right but the boar in this area are from pure Eastern European stock and first escaped in 1997. Other boar in the south of the Forest of Dean almost certainly do have a touch of domestic pig in them but this animal would be too old for there to be much chance of mixed blood.

Out of interest the CIC score is 123.7 which just beats the previous UK record by 1.2 points. That boar also came from the same area.

I think I remember reading that most Western European wild boar have dubious genetics so perhaps we had better disregard all of those as well.

I think if people could be bothered to do DNA checks you'd find even the "pure" E.European stock has a touch of domestic porker in there some where.

Either way its still a big piggy. It must have taken some shifting.

I know a couple of French hunters who use a stretcher made from woven redundant fire hose and scaffold poles. Their hunting terrain is rather rugged and recovery vehicle access is limited.

quote:

Originally posted by H5:

quote:

Originally posted by sewinbasher:
You may well be right but the boar in this area are from pure Eastern European stock and first escaped in 1997. Other boar in the south of the Forest of Dean almost certainly do have a touch of domestic pig in them but this animal would be too old for there to be much chance of mixed blood.

Out of interest the CIC score is 123.7 which just beats the previous UK record by 1.2 points. That boar also came from the same area.

I think I remember reading that most Western European wild boar have dubious genetics so perhaps we had better disregard all of those as well.

I think if people could be bothered to do DNA checks you'd find even the "pure" E.European stock has a touch of domestic porker in there some where.

Either way its still a big piggy. It must have taken some shifting.

I know a couple of French hunters who use a stretcher made from woven redundant fire hose and scaffold poles. Their hunting terrain is rather rugged and recovery vehicle access is limited.

I shot a sow of just under half the size of this boar in the same general area and two of us struggled to swing her up into the back of the 4 x 4 and we are two big lads.

The stretcher they have made allows 4 hunters to take a corner each and then they just slide the recovered cargo into a 4X4 using a short board and brute strength.

They shoot quite a few in the season and have perfected their system over a number of years of trial and error. Apparently it saves on the hernias!

quote:

I think I remember reading that most Western European wild boar have dubious genetics so perhaps we had better disregard all of those as well.


I think if people could be bothered to do DNA checks you'd find even the "pure" E.European stock has a touch of domestic porker in there some where

I've read a study about genetics in Italy... well all but the hight fences boars have mitocondrial DNA whit evidence of hybridy whit domestic races, mostly Largewhite and Duroc.
In others part of Europe i thin the situation is similar. I've see Spanish boars skulls whitout the first lower premolars, a sign of domestic blood, and the black and blonde boars I see sometime in german pics arent' the most pure in the world, I suppose...

quote:

Originally posted by lorefuma:
I've read a study about genetics in Italy... well all but the hight fences boars have mitocondrial DNA whit evidence of hybridy whit domestic races, mostly Largewhite and Duroc.
In others part of Europe i thin the situation is similar. I've see Spanish boars skulls whitout the first lower premolars, a sign of domestic blood, and the black and blonde boars I see sometime in german pics arent' the most pure in the world, I suppose...

Exactly! Claims of genetic purity from any european bloodline be that eastern or western europe have to be viewed with degrees of scepticism.

In the Uk feral pig would be a more precise reference term than wild boar.

quote:

Originally posted by H5:

quote:

Originally posted by lorefuma:
I've read a study about genetics in Italy... well all but the hight fences boars have mitocondrial DNA whit evidence of hybridy whit domestic races, mostly Largewhite and Duroc.
In others part of Europe i thin the situation is similar. I've see Spanish boars skulls whitout the first lower premolars, a sign of domestic blood, and the black and blonde boars I see sometime in german pics arent' the most pure in the world, I suppose...

Exactly! Claims of genetic purity from any european bloodline be that eastern or western europe have to be viewed with degrees of scepticism.

In the Uk feral pig would be a more precise reference term than wild boar.

The question of nomenclature is subjective. At what point does the presence of domestic pig blood cause a boar to become a feral pig? If it is any pig blood at all then one would have to wonder where there were any true wild boar anywhere in the World. If it is not any pig blood at all but a defined proportion of pig blood then someone will have had to say just what proportion of pig blood stops an animal being a boar and changes it to a feral pig, and as far as I know that line has not been drawn.

My own view is that there would have to be a reasonably significant proportion of domestic pig blood for them to be called feral pigs rather than boar. For example any animal with less than 10% domestic DNA can probably not in all conscience be called a feral pig and there are obviously discussions to be had about animals with a higher proportion of domestic DNA.

Feral pigs in other parts of the World (Australia, New Zealand, USA and Argentina) show physical signs of audulterated blood and may do so in parts of the UK, Sussex for example. However there are almost certainly populations in the UK that are no more sullied by domestic pig blood than many wild boar in Europe that have no prospect of being regarded as anything other than wild boar.

I think that the most sensible policy would be to take UK populations on a case by case basis and it would be unfair to brand an animal as a feral pig with nothing to prove it either way when the animal looks like a boar, behaves like a boar and is to all intents and purposes is a boar.

The boar that I have seen and shot in Herefordshire have absolutely no physical characteristics of pigs and do not even have the larger litter size often the product of a bit of piggy influence. They are no different to many animals in Western Europe that are accepted as boar and that is good enough for me.

If H5 has specific knowledge of the genetic make up of the Herefordshire boar (or even East European boar) then fair enough but if as I suspect he does not, then he is being probably deliberately provocative in trying to brand them as inferior feral pigs when he has no evidence to support this view and the term feral pig is far from the "precise reference term" that he suggests.

Sewinbasher

1.At what point does the presence of domestic pig blood cause a boar to become a feral pig?

That's a question for a geneticist to answer. As I am sure there is a scientific descriptor available.Whether its based solely upon DNA profile I'm not certain .

2.However there are almost certainly populations in the UK that are no more sullied by domestic pig blood than many wild boar in Europe that have no prospect of being regarded as anything other than wild boar.

As you said above the question of nomenclature is subjective.

3.I think that the most sensible policy would be to take UK populations on a case by case basis and it would be unfair to brand an animal as a feral pig with nothing to prove it either way when the animal looks like a boar, behaves like a boar and is to all intents and purposes is a boar.

Until such times as those populations remain isolated, which will be for a limited period given their breeding potential and lack of population control.When "boar" like population become contaminated by "pig" like populations they will revert to feral pig status

4.They are no different to many animals in Western Europe that are accepted as boar and that is good enough for me.

If the intention is to at some point to submit trophies for CIC adjudication the need to ascertain uncontaminated heritage should be a prerequisite?

5.If H5 has specific knowledge of the genetic make up of the Herefordshire boar (or even East European boar) then fair enough but if as I suspect he does not, then he is being probably deliberately provocative in trying to brand them as inferior feral pigs when he has no evidence to support this view and the term feral pig is far from the "precise reference term" that he suggests.

I have no specific genetic knowledge of the Herefordshire stock. Neither do you if we are being honest here. I just take a different view on the hype and spin that's all. I work on the basis that its always best to err on the side of caution in such matters as nature very often has a way of dropping a large bomb in amongst the guest attending the celebration party. Either way, pure or contaminated they taste pretty good which is what matters most of all.