WILD BOAR AND DOMESTIC PIGS
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Apart from a few isolated examples, all domesticated pigs are descended from the wild boar (Sus scrofa).
Wild boar, which are naturally widespread and common right across the Eurasian landmass as far as the Russian Far East (and including Great Britain, Japan and the main islands of Indonesia), appear to have been first domesticated in the Anatolia region of what is now Turkey some 9,000–10,000 years ago.
But a separate domestication also occurred in China a bit later. They were brought to Europe around 6,500 years ago (from Anatolia), and this may have inspired people living here to carry out their own domestication efforts. Indeed, genetic studies suggest that European domestic pigs are descended from European wild boar. rooting behaviour knocks back the bracken, and he takes me to a site where, he says, rare small pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies thrive thanks to the activities of the boar.
But, this year, the site is covered in bracken, and apart from some very old, dry dung, there’s no indication any boar have been here for some time. Is that because the Forestry Commission has been reducing their numbers through culling? David’s not sure.
BOARS AND BLUEBELLS
Later, we go to a different site that female boar use in the spring to have their piglets – humbugs, as they are known, for their stripy appearance. Here, there’s a large patch of open land where the pervasive bracken has been replaced by a far more varied mix of grasses, thistles and flowers. If we were here earlier in the year, there would be bluebells.
“You realise that where the boar are, there’s healthy grassland and forest,” David tells me. “They rotovate the soil and that puts bacteria and air into it and helps to bring up seeds to the surface. The boar get seeds stuck in their fur, and then they have a wallow somewhere else and rub seeds back into the soil.”
RIGHT Wild boar young have a lighter-coloured coat than adults. Gingerbrown with stripes for camouflage, it has earned them the name ‘humbugs’