The burgeoning wild boar population rooting around in Britain's woodlands needs to be culled to halt an impending environmental disaster, scientists said yesterday.Conservationists and wildlife specialists are calling on the Government to designate the ferocious creatures as game, paving the way for boar hunting seasons.
Three hundred years after being hunted to extinction, thriving packs of wild boar - known as soundings - have re-established themselves across the country. It is estimated that Britain's wild boar population is already in the high hundreds and growing unabated.
Along with the spread of the tusked pigs come increasing fears for the safety of humans, livestock and crops, as well as the threat of an urban invasion.
In Germany, where the boars are vigorously hunted, there are up to 7,000 living in the centre of Berlin.
Apart from carrying swine fever, foot and mouth and bovine TB, the animals eat crops, cause traffic accidents and may, if cornered or feeling threatened, attack humans.
Dr Martin Goulding, a wild boar specialist and former Defra scientist, said designating the animals as game would allow them to be culled humanely and efficiently.
He said: "They are a threat to livestock, crops and people, but they are an important part of the woodland ecosystem."
Dr Goulding said the creature's only predators - wolves, bears and lynxes - no longer existed in the UK. "There is no balance of nature with boars. If there were no controls they would soon move out of the woodlands and become more urban. People would find them rooting around in dustbins, like foxes but bigger and more fearsome."
Dr Goulding said there should be controls on shooting boar so that they do not become extinct in the UK once more.
The wild pigs, which are common in mainland Europe, were last seen on these shores in the late 17th century. They were reintroduced in the 1980s for wild boar farming. Until the storms of 1987 none was living wild, but uprooted fencing and escapes from abattoirs led to the boars reasserting themselves, primarily across south England. Sightings have also been reported across east and northern England and Scotland.
Last December, animal rights activists released 100 from a farm in Devon. More than fifty of the escapees evaded recapture.
The largest soundings are thought to be more than 100-strong in woodlands along the Kent and Sussex border and in the Forest of Dean, Herefordshire.
The Game Conservancy Trust, a scientific research organisation, has added its voice to the growing clamour for more controls. Its spokesman, Morag Walker, said: "We think they need to be vigorously controlled and culling is one of the ways to do that."
A spokesman for Defra said: "We acknowledge that the wild boar population is an issue and are looking at it very closely.
"Designating them game animals is an option."
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