Tracks and signs, wild boar

Tracks and signs mammals in the south of Europe

WILD BOAR

(Sus scrofa)

Actually, it has almost reached the state of plague.

The human depopulation of last decades has left for the nature big extensions where the autochthonous forest is regenerated profusely: oak, kermes oak ... paradise for this Suidae.

It eats absolutely everything, vegetable or animal, alive or dead. It is crepuscular and nocturnal, especially in summer. It spends the day sheltering in the bush.

It is extremely adaptable to the changeable circumstances and to what the area offers it in every moment, occupying practically 100 % of the Peninsula, from the coast up to the Alpine meadows above 2000meters.

Some old males isolate of the rest and are made accompany of young like pages, joining with the females only during the mating season. The only enemies of the wild boar are the wolf, the lynx and the big eagles.

An omnivorous diet, which they enter from rabbits up to babies of cattle or of wild ungulates, many descent, and all that sheltered by the tangle have turned to the wild boar in one of the most abundant animals and of that more tracks appear in any excursion. Usually always move within its territory by the same paths. The wild boar loves the mountain and only it leaves it when is needed, this is seen clearly in the destructions that it causes in meadows of harvest and sowed fields, much more abundant in the dry years, managing to be void in years of abundant food in the mount. This will be obvious especially in the least humanized places where they can choose.

Wild boar loves the fields of sunflowers and especially cornfields, since apart from food it tries freshness in summer. For its abundance it might be affecting negatively in other species, as the bear in the Pyrenees and the capercaillie or the partridge. It has a great aptitude to swim and habitually it crosses the rivers, even of great size as the Ebro, seems to be that they are in the habit of using the same fords to cross them, so much of one shore to other one as for acceding to the islands where to rest without any inconvenience. Going everyday with the snout to the soil has its disadvantages, especially when you run against a viper or a scorpion, but the wild boar has armed itself for it with a protection against the poison in its snout.

The attitude of a wild boar before the human being is absolutely unpredictable, since from this animal it is possible to expect for anything. The first action is to escape and if it attacks a person is due to the fact that the animal is hurt or it sees to the young wild boars in danger, being almost always merely intimidating, but it is necessary to take care because their fangs are not called “knives” because of anything... The females accompanied of the babies’ wild boar can turn out to be dangerous.

Many people who walk a lot in the mount wonder where they are.

The response is simple, apart from the fact that they hide very well they do not move of “the bed”, unless not throw directly.

It is difficult to determine the sex of an individual in the field, until we do not see the young, but the tail can be a good indicative, because the male runs with the drop tail and the female with horizontal tail. It doesn’t like the wind remaining when it blows under the protection of ravines and protected hillsides. In Sajambre (Picos de Europa) they saw its first wild boar in the decade of the 60, as well as in provinces like Almeria and others where they did not know it and now it is present in the whole Peninsula entering inside cities as Barcelona, Saragossa or Valladolid.

To sleep outdoors in zone of abundant wild boars offers many possibilities that in the night they pass very close, even in the other side of the bush where they are lying (4m of distance), (HUESCA, in August, 94) the animal scared me because it was half an hour by my side. It has an exceptional smell and a good ear for what it is not easy to see it in the mount. Generally they go out running when we find them in the field, but not usually occur in a hurry, a friend took the leg of a baby in Canfránc (HUESCA) and he released it immediately when he saw the face of the angry mother.

“La Garcipollera” (Castiello de Jaca, HUESCA) is an abandoned valley by the rural depopulation that It was handed to ICONA (Institute for Conservation of Nature), in it has been hunted very little in the last years and has served for place of playtime of the tourists, motives for those that the deer and the wild boar show themselves very trusting, specially the latter, since it is strange that when you open the door of the car you do not have anyone waiting. The wild boars run between the cars and people throw them food. It turns out curious that the females accompanied of babies separate in this situation, remaining the babies behind some bush while the mother eats the food that the tourists offer them. The wild boar coexists very well with the humans.

Excrements

The excrement of the wild boar is the easiest to recognize between the ungulates, not answering to the common norm between them.

They are spherical, a little smoothed and more or less deformed. If the food is juicy it turns out to be a compact mass where they appreciate the different small balls that form them. Often it excretes them in row, joined by the centre. Rarely they turn out to be separated. Every little ball could manage to measure even 3-3,5x2-3cm.

Compact until 5-6 per 15cm. The content in the majority of the occasions is 100 vegetable % though it can appear of everything, insects, remains of bones, feathers, hair, etc. As the bear, not being a ruminant, the remains, in case of being vegetables, they appear in chunks bigger than a deer or a sheep. While a deer or a goat defecate 30 or 40 small balls, isolated or compact, a wild boar just over one third. Colour varies between brown to black.

Location

Without a concrete location. Tends to defecate upon walking from its

shelter.

Footprints

They consist of two front hoofs and two, more small, back (guards),

giving the whole a trapezoidal shape and differentiating the boar from other ungulates in which it turns out to be rectangular. This one is an important detail in the snow or the soft mud, where the footprints are in the habit of being confused. The footprints are symmetrical.

When the principal hoofs are united they acquire an oval form, being able then get confused with those of the deer. The pads of the hoofs do not leave good impression in its back part, remaining badly delimited the contour, important detail to separate it from the rest of the ungulates. For this motive the footprints are in the habit of being

slightly clear. Almost always we find the leg placed on the hand, in the male lightly it displaces towards the exterior. Also the male marks clearer the guards. Guards measure 2x1cm and the majority of the times are slight outlines, being placed 3 or 4cm behind the principal ones, which can manage to measure 7x10 cm. They are the adult males that more often mark the guards, the young ones mark in rare occasions.

Principal characteristics

The bad impression that offer the pads of the hoofs and the trapezoidal form that acquires the footprint when it marks the guards.

Between a hull and other one a crest of mud does not appear, like the deer or the sheep.

Nourishment

The people who know this animal knows of what this one is capable of, being able to leave the soil of a pine grove as if a war had exploded, or in the meadows in search of bulbs, roots... leaving behind all raised. It differs quite clearly from the badger, rooting with the nose in all directions and leaving the land and the stones at the edge of the hole and slightly beyond.

It manages to do holes of half a meter of deeply. Other times, the hole is of the size of its snout. In some occasions, it fixes the thick lip and advances, leaving a rut as the plough, which can reach several meters.

In autumn and winter, it digs the roots of the pines up to eat the bark.

The wild boar can dig slightly a root and bite a little, or do a great gap around the tree, ripping thick roots and lifting them throughout their length, leaving the rut in the land of the tracing of the root. In a field of maize or wheat it lies down on the bushes to leave them on the soil and then to eat the fruits. Also it likes the almonds. It goes to the fields when they are already mature. If we find a lot of broken almonds together it is a work of some countryman, if the rinds turn out to be distributed about the almond-tree has been the wild boar.

Some wild boars manage to specialize in the hunt for rabbits, for which they cover the entry of the burrow with the thick lip excavating up to reaching the animal. They are not prepared physically for the active hunt, but if they have opportunity they will attack pups both wild and domestic ungulates. It raises or digs the mucks of the cows and horses in search of beetles. It raises stones to look for insects, amphibious, etc, this is something punctual in some periods but sometimes you could see enough elevated stones.

It gnaws at the fallen sets of antlers of the deer and eats completely the thinnest parts. When the cereals still not matured they chew the stems to extract the juice throwing them later in the shape of little balls.

Other tracks

Wild boar loves to bathe in the river mud, lagoons or simply puddles.

There is the one who says that it is capable of differentiating the medicinal mud. In a few occasions it rubs slightly, at other times is a real pond of mud. In both, when the mud already is slightly dry, it makes it smoothed and with the printed brands of the hair.

Some of these baths are regularly used by the same animal. Though they use them along all the year they do it especially in winter.

Immediately afterwards it goes to a tree or more rarely a rock and it rubs with intensity, leaving everything cutlery of mud and some adhered sows. This activity also makes the deer; therefore it will be necessary to pay attention to footprints, hair and especially the height. But the immense majority of those that we see they will be of the wild boar. It seems to be that the trees are basic in the society of the wild boar using them not only to scratch itself or to be fed, also as support of communication between different individuals. It tends to prefer a particular tree, to this previously debarked by one side.

In some occasions it is possible to find the beginning of this debarking. During the mating season, especially the males, leave brands of its incisor teeth in the bark of the trees in chosen places, where we will find several feet with these characteristic brands, already horizontal, diagonal or vertical accompanied of saliva. These stabs seem to have a territorialist interest.

Repose

Always it looks for the thickness, in the heart of its territory and hot places in winter, south face, and fresh in summer, north face, though principally eastward, but especially sheltered by the wind. It is not very demanding with the bed, scratching superficially the verbiage and the land. But in other occasions removes more the area and accumulates

some branches and grass acquiring major consistency. The hillsides of high mountain, covered of white and black pine, are in the habit of being very hanging and sometimes it’s hard to find a flat place, except the part of the trees and shrubs, which look at the ascending slope, since there is accumulated very much materially that falls down rolling, these small plains are used frequently.

But it is the moment in which the female is going to give birth when it prepares an authentic nest, accumulating branches and grass up to almost the meter and hiding inside to the babies. The new born wild boars are kept 2 or 3 weeks in the nest until they leave it to join with the rest of the herd. When they accompany its mother, the females prepares small nests for them in order that they rest, doing hollows between the verbiage or between the high grasses. They use to hide the bramble patches, where the tunnels of entry and exit are appreciated.

The bramble patches take a lot of importance as a resting place in much humanized zones and with little vegetable coverage. The size of the bed speaks to us about the size of the animal.