Wild Boar Hunting Info >> Hog Hunting

The wild boar, the ancestor to our domestic pigs, is a large pig species covered in dark bristly hair. It is a widespread species, common in broadleaf forests across much of Europe, Asia and North Africa. It has a lifespan of 15 to 20 years. The animal measures from 90 to 180cm with a tail between 30 and 40cm and weighing between 50 and 200kg. Regarding their physical description, the animal has a long body with short legs and a big-sized head on a rather short neck. The coat of the wild boar is made of short bristly hair and has a dark color although the young are tan with unique pale stripes. The snout is prominent, the short tail is tasseled while the ears are hairy and quite large.

These animals are widely spread across the world, as follows: Europe, Asia (including Taiwan, Japan and Sumatra), North Africa and recently introduced in North America. Several feral domestic pigs can be found in North and South America, New Zealand and Australia. Their natural habitat is broad-leaved woodland and steppe. The wild boar’s diet is: omnivorous, nuts, fungi, carrion, small animals and rooting in litter for roots. As far as their behavior is concerned, the adult males are solitary while females have the tendency to form groups, including in them their young (called sounders).

Their main way of communicating is by using sounds, smells and visual signals like the position of the tail and ears. These animals are active both during the day and the night but they mostly feed during the night. Both males and females become sexually mature when they reach 18 months, although some male only mate when they reach a certain size and dominance often around the time they reach 4 years). The mating period takes place in the autumn after fights between male wild boars in order to establish dominance. The production of salivary foam by the male is one of the many courtship rituals. The young are born after a period of gestation of 115 days in a nest of vegetation that was built by the mother, each of the piglets have their own teat. The females continue to live in their mother’s sounder until it becomes too large and eventually splits up.

The wild boar is not threatened although it has become extinct in many parts of its former range. For these animals, vocalizations are crucial that is why they are constantly chirruping and grunting to each other; when they are alarmed, they usually start to squeal. The first true pigs were brought to the United States by Hernando de Sota to the Atlantic Coast of Florida in 1539. The first “Pure Russian” wild boars were brought into the U.S. by Austin Corbin. These animals were released into a 20,000 acre enclosure in Sullivan County New Hampshire in 1890. According to many studies, wild boars are considered to be very clever animals (some even say that wild boars are the smartest animals in the woods).