Male boar prowls at rear of the flock
Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Forest road. Alam – Pedja.
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Wild boar
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Metssiga |
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It is the end of November, and the mating period of wild boars has started and will last until January in the new year. Fully-grown males now move near the flocks (or sounders) led by sows, and if the sows haven’t driven off juvenile males from the flock then the "bigger and stronger” make the competitors leave. There are bloody battles between rivals at times; an armour of connective tissue near the ribs acts as a protective shield against the tusks of an adversary.
Ever more often piglet tracks can be seen in autumn; young sows have rutting periods at odd times. It will be difficult for these piglets to survive the winter.
There has been no frost in the ground for a long time, and so the main food is the above- and underground parts of plants; hunters’ forage fields are visited as well as this year’s unharvested – because of the overly wet weather – cornfields. Boars get animal protein from rooting for worms, molluscs, insects, amphibians and by hunting small mammals. And there are truly plenty of signs of their activities
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