Breeding ’eck! Goldsmith risks local anger with amorous swine
NEIGHBOURS of multimillionaire Ben Goldsmith have long suspected he was responsible for the sudden appearance of wild boar in his fashionable corner of the West Country.
Goldsmith has shaken things up since deciding to ‘rewild’ his £3.8 million estate in deepest Somerset, attracting beavers, boar and deer to the sleepy, rolling countryside — and as I revealed earlier this year, he recently bought a pair of wildcats.
Though the nature campaigner and financier strenuously denies ever releasing boar, insisting they are content to trample around his grounds, I can reveal that he has bred some feral pigs. He plans to give them out to his friends who are ‘rewilding’ their estates.
Goldsmith, 40, admits that he has recently welcomed a litter of ‘suspiciously stripy’ piglets to his menagerie.
‘I use Tamworth pigs on my grounds to root up the soil and promote the growth of wild plants. It appears a rogue wild boar sneaked into the pen where I keep my Tamworths and knocked up the sow!’
The family seems rather happy, however. ‘I am not sure her mate knows he has been cuckolded!’ Goldsmith jokes.
He says the ‘illicit liaison’ was a ‘happy accident’ and hopes to give the piglets to his friends with estates, adding: ‘I can give these to people wanting to do the same sort of thing with their land as I am. They are very sweet.’ This newspaper recently revealed that the son of late billionaire James Goldsmith was accused of setting boar loose after he sent a text recalling an incident when ‘some of my wild boar got loose and try as I might I was unable to retrieve them’.
However, he explained he would never release these animals — a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to two years — and says he typed the words ‘wild boar’ in error when he really meant to type ‘pigs’ because ‘I must have been typing on my phone while driving’.
While Goldsmith may be as happy as a pig in muck about the new additions to his farm, I wonder what his neighbours will think?