I am posting here as well as in hog hunting. My sister(yes there is sibling rivalry in this question) after having lived in Europe for a few years has declared that "biologically speaking" when Europeans refer to wild boar they are referring to Peckarys and Javalinas. I have always been under the impression that wild boar is used to describe the male gender of feral pigs of varrying lineage, including the Russian variety. I know nothing of Peckerys-what we call javalina in south Texas. She is not a hunter. I am. I am trying to help her not sound stupid. Those in the know please help.

I have also heard "boar" used in referrence to bears and porcupines.

Andy B

quote:

Originally posted by drewhenrytnt:
I am posting here as well as in hog hunting. My sister(yes there is sibling rivalry in this question) after having lived in Europe for a few years has declared that "biologically speaking" when Europeans refer to wild boar they are referring to Peckarys and Javalinas. I have always been under the impression that wild boar is used to describe the male gender of feral pigs of varrying lineage, including the Russian variety. I know nothing of Peckerys-what we call javalina in south Texas. She is not a hunter. I am. I am trying to help her not sound stupid. Those in the know please help.

I have also heard "boar" used in referrence to bears and porcupines.

Andy B

Andy

Far be it for me to step to the line between siblings - however, she is talking baloney!

Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) are a pure line of European wild pig. Perky ears and a straight tail differentiate them from any form of feral pig.

Size wise they could eat a couple Javelina for breakfast - and still have time for a few pancakes and syrup! Either that or maybe a Peccary on rye toast prior to starting the day's hog stuff!

Now just to confuse the issue, the term 'boar' is indeed used to denote the male of some species. As you mentioned, these include bear, pig, porcupine and badger.

Please find below, one wild boar (recumbent)



Rgds Ian

Thank you Ian!! Me and her just had a shouting match about this very subject and she threatened to leave.....I told her to bugger off. Yes it gets intense between the two of us. Both of us are "pig-headed", stubborn, and will argue to the death that we are right sometimes even when we know we are wrong(never me)! If others chime in as well I'll have more ammo for the fire. Yes she really pissed me off this time. She is visiting with her fiance from Wales and she is trying to show up the rest of the family with her doctorate.

It is nice to get a response from a fellow hunter especially from the UK.

After reading your response out loud it has been peacefully quiet in our house.

To some extent we were both right. But the fact that she was wrong is enough for me.

Andy B

Ian, this is a very impressive specimen!

Here is a picture of a smaller one and a roe deer fawn I shot this January while hunting with my son Victor.

Most of us refer to both the male and female of this species as "Wild Boar", though this is obviously technically incorrect.

I think in German they are refered to as "Wild Swine" which is probably better.

Anyway this is a small one I shot a few weeks back in Germany, a yearling of around 60Kgs (135pounds?):

Note that if you look to the top right of the picture above you will see why we call him Claret dabbler.

What a mess

Regards,

Amir

There is some debate in the UK as to whether the animals now loose in the wild are "Wild Boar" or "Feral Pigs" since they escaped or were released relatively recently from captivity.
It has suited those in authority to treat them as "feral pigs" and a "local problem" for quite some time before recently acknowledging that there were enough of them to require some sort of control.
Even now, some firearms licensing teams are being difficult about adding them to peoples tickets.
From a pure breed perspective, they may not be genetically pure but hey, if they've got a bit of Gloucester Old Spot or Tamworth in their bloodlines, the Bacon should be better!

Here, a little to the east, "wild boar" means strictly only truly wild pigs in the forest ( sus scrofa ), both male and female.
There aren't any Feral hogs here (no tradition of free-roaming farming), and definately no Peccaries.
While both Peccaries and Sus Scrofa belong to the Suina suborder, they are from a different family: Tayassuidae for Peccaries and Suidae for sus scrofa . According to my books Peccaries weight between 20 to 40 kilograms, while the Estonian Hunters Society states that "normally pigs hunted here weigh from 50 to 150kg. Some of the biggest have been around 350kg." That's 770 pounds! They are a completely different species. It is impossible to put two so different animals under a common name "wild boar".
So when we say "Metssiga" (estonian for wild swine) or "Kult" (male wild swine) we mean stricktly only sus scrofa . Anything else would be called simply "Siga" (pig).

I don't know where your sister gets her ideas from, but she's horribly wrong, even if she has a PhD.

You win!

A PhD just means you know an awfull lot more than most people about a very small and very specific subject area.
It doesn't make you an expert on everything.

Trap,

Our Buddy Ian is correct......

quote:

Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) are a pure line of European wild pig. Perky ears and a straight tail differentiate them from any form of feral pig.

Here in The Fatherland:

Das Schwarzwild (Sus Scrofa) = Wild Boar.

Keiler = Boar

Bache = Sow

Frischling = Piglets

Rotte = Sounder

There are no spieces of Javalina in the wild here.

Javelinas belong to the new world pigs. The members of the generus "sus" are not native to America.

Correct. From Wikipedia (such as it is):

quote:

Peccaries (also known as javelinas, by the Portuguese name javali and Spanish jabalí or pecarí) are medium-sized mammals of the family Tayassuidae. Peccaries are members of the artiodactyl suborder Suina, as are swine (Suidae) and hippopotami[1]. They are found in the southwestern area of North America and throughout Central and South America. Peccaries usually measure between 90 and 130 cm in length (3 to 4 feet), and a full-grown adult usually weighs between about 20 and 40 kilograms (44 to 88 pounds).

People often confuse peccaries, which are found in the Americas, with pigs which originated in Afro-Eurasia, especially since some domestic pigs brought by European settlers have escaped over the years and now run wild as razorback hogs in many parts of the United States.

- mike

I have already posted these pictures in another section. Whether you want to call them "wild boar" or "feral pig", I had been chasing this destructive SOB for about 6 months, and I also killed 3 of his offspring in the previous couple of weeks.

Good man!


Thanks for posting those pictures.

I'll get flamed for this but.....

I'll let you into a little secret, just as you post above, in private we tend to just call them "piggies"

Regards,

Amir

Yo Jeff,

Waidmannsheil - Bubba!

Impressive looking Porker; call it whatever you want - "Large Dead Pig" appears a fitting description!

The animal in Jeff's photo above looks very much like a "purebred" sus scrofa. Quite a few European Wild Boar have been imported to the U.S. as game animals, so there has been an opportunity for mixing of "pure" and feral genes to some extent.

However, my guess is that Jeff's piggy has more "domestic" blood than European blood: All domestic swine have been bred up from sus scrofa. When swine go feral, it takes only a few generations for them to largely revert to their original lineage. This is in part due to environment (no one around to clip their tusks and feed them corn mash), and to survival selection ("skinny", fast individuals having a better chance to survive and reproduce in the wild, and "hairy" individuals survive cold weather better.) While I am confident that no European Boar have been introduced in the particular area that I hunt, more and more of the feral hogs we kill every year have the sus scrofa look of dark, hairy bodies and long snouts.

And no, javalinas are no more related to European wild boar than goats are to Herefords.

Are there any pics of the final product using these Piggies? Rotisserie style! Someone must have done one round the campfire.

The UK wild boar record has recently been broken and although tusk size is not necessarily related to body size this was a monster in all respects.

It was a CIC Gold Medal and UK record at 123.7 points. The tusks were just over 9". The body weight was 534lbs and it was just over 6' long from nose to tail.

It was from pure East European stock that escaped from a farm in 1997.

Some UK boar have a bit of domestic pig in them but most look exactly right.

Here's a couple I got in the same area, they are a 200lb sow and a 125lb yearling.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:

And no, javalinas are no more related to European wild boar than goats are to Herefords.

Actually although I think you are technically correct in that javelinas and peccaries are not strictly wild boar they bear a strong resemblance to them and are more closely related being from the same sub-order Suidae whereas a goat is a goat and Hereford is a cow.

Incidentally the boar in my post above were shot not far from Hereford the home of those lovely cattle.

quote:

Originally posted by Trapper Dave:
There is some debate in the UK as to whether the animals now loose in the wild are "Wild Boar" or "Feral Pigs" since they escaped or were released relatively recently from captivity.
It has suited those in authority to treat them as "feral pigs" and a "local problem" for quite some time before recently acknowledging that there were enough of them to require some sort of control.
Even now, some firearms licensing teams are being difficult about adding them to peoples tickets.
From a pure breed perspective, they may not be genetically pure but hey, if they've got a bit of Gloucester Old Spot or Tamworth in their bloodlines, the Bacon should be better!

Quite true Dave. As all UK boar originally escaped from farms and in many cases some domestic blood was crossed in to increase litter size, the purity of many UK wild boar might well be open to question.

There are three main populations located in Kent/Sussex, Dorset and Gloucestershire/Herefordshire

I don't know too much about the Kent/Sussex boar but I think there is some pig in them, there are certainly a few odd colour variations normally associated with pig although I have read that they occur naturally in European boar.

The population in the north of the Forest of Dean are of pure Eastern European origin whilst those in the south of the forest almost definitely have some domestic pig in them. It will not be long before these two populations meet up and then sadly dilute the bloodlines of the huge boar in the north of the forest.

I also don't know much about the Dorset boar which IanF's fine animal is a great example of but they always looked fairly pure to me.

One good guideline is litter size as any boar with domestic blood tend to have large litters whereas pure boar don't often have more than about 6 or 7.

I'm not inclined to worry too much about genetic purity. I think you'll find that the combination of hybrid vigour and natural selection will lead to the relatively quick re-emergence of those characteristics which success as a feral or wild beast demands.
As a certain Mr Hitler found out, hybrid vigour tends to trump racial purity when the chips are down
I think litter size will be trimmed by environmental constraints. I hope so or populations will expand quite rapidly.
I'm certainly not expecting to set my sights on the cuddly animals starring in the Sheep Pig or Charlotte's Web!
Intelligent, Cunning and hard to get on top of are likely to be the order of the day.
Yet another species shoehorning its way into the wild corners of our tiny island.