Wild boar

Appearance

A stocky, short-legged animal with a large head. The coat is coarse and bristly, ranging from greyish brown to black. Piglets have longitudinal stripes in their first months.

The male's lower canines – the tusks – curve outwards and upwards and are sharpened against the upper canines (whetters). Mature boars typically weigh 100–200 kg, sows 60–120 kg.

It lives in varied habitats: broadleaf and mixed forests, reed beds, floodplains, and increasingly in farmland and even settlements. Access to water and wallows is important.

Sows live in sounders with their piglets and young animals; old boars are mostly solitary. Mainly nocturnal. The rut takes place in late autumn and winter; piglets are mostly born in spring, though litters occur at other times of year too.

An omnivore, it eats acorns, beechnuts, roots, tubers, insect larvae, small animals and crops such as maize and wheat, and can cause significant crop damage.

• Track: the imprints of the dewclaws show behind the hoof; the print is broader and blunter than that of deer.
• Rooting: turned-over soil in forests, meadows and fields.
• Wallows and rubbing trees: muddy hollows with mud-smeared, worn tree trunks nearby.
• Beds: resting places built from branches and grass.

The trophy consists of the boar's tusks (lower canines) and whetters (upper canines). Under the CIC system the length and width of the tusks and the circumference of the whetters are measured, and beauty points are added. The gold medal threshold is 120 CIC points.