The story of the boar
He was massive and squared up to our car like a prize boxer. Ignoring our headlights, he looked accusatorily at us as if to say “what did you do that for?”. And off he ran into the night. When drove home to my parents house in Valencia, we were able to examine the V-shaped dent in the grille and bonnet of my Dad’s big old Jag. The animal must have been hewn out of granite. This was the first and only time that I have faced the awesome power and attitude of a wild boar.
Known in Spain as jaboli (“hab o lee”), they have a reputation for being tough, destructive and not bothered by humans whom they will attack. Their reputation is both fair and unfair. They are destructive, leaving a night-time trail of rooted up land and lawns from their foraging, but fatalities are very rare and occur normally when cornered or being hunted. A sow will defend her piglets, but who can blame her for that.
The largest population in Britain is to be found in the Forest of Dean. It was here during a cycling trip over the summer holidays, that Alison (my wife and our in-house artist / all round wildlife-savant) spotted earth that had been rooted up by boars. This gave me the prompt I needed to share the story behind the wild boars on our jars of kraut and slaw.
There is a short and slightly prosaic answer, namely that wild boar love eating cabbage and we love the strength and intelligence of these impressive animals. Also, their striped, inquisitive babies look like a mint humbug and are amongst the cutest in the animal kingdom. More than that though, we like our labels to tell a little story. We took as our inspiration the Welsh legend, Twrch Trwyth (say “Turk Tru-eth”). This is an ancient hunting story, referenced in the “Matter of Britain” the ancient collection of stories of these islands.
Alongside our porcine hero in this story is King Arthur, a set of hairdresser scissors and a comb. If the story was written today, you might think the author had been taking some hallucinogenic mushrooms. It is actually a soulful story of love, challenge, good and evil.
Ysbaddaden is a cruel, mythical giant. He seems to be forever worrying about getting the perfectly coifed head of hair which is fair enough because the top of a giant is pretty much always on show. There are lots of curses knocking around. The giant will die if his daughter, Olwen, gets married. Meanwhile, Olwen has a suitor, Culhwch, who has his own curse that means he has to marry her (you can see the problem!). To help avoid this “fatality” hazard Ysbaddaden sets the young suitor a series of insanely difficult challenges mostly related to his hair-care regime.
Our hero is set the task to capture a wild enchanted boar, Twrch Trwyth, who is the cursed son of a Prince. He’s formidable and scary and, critically, has scissors, a comb and a razor hidden in his mane. Ysbaddaden wants to get his hands on the hairdressing kit and knows that Culhwch is likely to get hurt trying. Culhwch is no fool, so asks his cousin King Arthur for help. King Arthur uses his dog and men to track down our boar in an odyssey that sweeps through Ireland, Wales and ultimately ends in Cornwall. The boar gives an incredible fight but ultimately gives up the hair-care kit and is swept into the sea. The good news is that Olwen and Culhwch marry and do live happily ever after. Tough outcome for the nasty giant and the boar. This stuff isn’t Disney.
So what about the prospects of wild boar in Britain? The wild boar was hunted to extinction in Britain twice, first in the 13th century and then in the 17th century. This is an all too familiar story (see passenger pigeons in the USA etc etc), but a small population has found its way back to these shores. Since being reintroduced in the 1980s by meat farmers, some have escaped to establish themselves in the wild in the 1990s and there was also a formal release programme in 2004. The main populations are in the Forest of Dean, on the Kent/Sussex border, Dorset, Suffolk, North Yorkshire and Aberdeenshire. The numbers are not be great yet, maybe up to 4000, and its too early to really understand any trends in their numbers, but there are breeding populations. It is also believed that the Forest of Dean boars have now spread into Monmouthshire where we are based.
The boar may bring benefits, with mooting and foraging pushing back bracken to allow other flora and fauna (such as the fritillary butterfly) to flourish and to encourage reforestation. Some people argue that their rooting for insects and seeds can disrupt bluebells, although they don’t eat the bulbs so damage may well be limited. It is believed that boars wouldn’t attack people (unless under stress), but can attack dogs off a lead. These animal do divide opinions.
No doubt, there are elements of truth in both sides of the argument. But one thing that is known is that Britain does not benchmark well on biodiversity compared to almost any other nation. We are estimated to have lost 50% of our natural biodiversity as a result of the intensification of our farming over the last 200 years. What we have is a farming industry that is both noble and flawed. Noble because farmers put the food on our table, create social stability (“only 3 meals away from revolution”) and have helped to increase life expectancy massively. But flawed in the sense that we are nowhere near food independent, importing about 40% of our food, yet so intensive that we are causing huge damage to our natural world.
So, in the spirit of rewilding (and our love of cute animal babies) we say lets give the wild boar a fair go. Welcome back to Wales.
https://www.countryfile.com/wildlife/where-to-see/guide-to-boar-in-britain-benefits-dangers/
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/mammals/wild-boar/