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Acorn collection winners, the children of the Kaisutriinu group, collected 110,00 kg.
 

The heap of acorns that the Ilmatsalu children collected for the Pig-TV boars was several times higher than the smallest pickers: the youngest children were 2-year-olds, and the acorns made a 300-kilo-pile – which is a really big acorn hill.
 

“The tiniest ones were our creche group children, who knew that we were collecting candies for the forest pigs” , says day nursery director Endla Aav. Endla Aav followed the Forest Camera with great interest last year. But last season the piggies were not treated to so many acorns.
 

When the Ilmatsalu kindergarten director got the idea to collect acorns this autumn, many joined in at once, since many teachers had been watching the Forest Camera last year. “The surprise was that the children were so active,” Endla Aav tells us. “Some children went acorn-gathering with their parents even at weekends. The collection excitement even brought about competitions, with nuts and apples for prizes. Three hundred kilos, or three 200-litre barrels of acorns were collected in one and a half month in the autumn.”
 

The heaps of acorns had to be carefully dried too. “We did not exactly dry them. We stored them in cardboard boxes and stirred them every now and then. We had nowhere to store them – but the acorns were soon transported to the hunting lodge,” Endla Aav explains.

The children are usually already asleep when the boars make their entrance on the screen. But thanks to the interest of grown-ups, the children too are told about the animals and shown the video recordings, and the goings-on are explained.