Lair of the Beasts: Tusked Thugs on the Loose

The life of a cryptozoologist doesn’t just resolve around quests to find Bigfoot, lake-monsters, the Chupacabras, the Abominable Snowman, or sea-serpents. Sometimes, it involves a search for known animals seen in locations in which they have no business hanging out. A perfect case in point: the wild boar of Britain.

Between their centuries-old extinction in the British Isles (or, some might very well argue, their presumed extinction) and the 1980s, when wild boar farming began in earnest in Britain, only a handful of captive wild boar, imported from the continent, are known to have been present in the country.

Occasional escapes of wild boar from wildlife parks did occur as early as the 1970s. It is since the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, that significant populations have successfully re-established themselves after escaping from farms; the number of which has greatly increased as the demand for wild boar meat has grown. Now: on to DEFRA.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the arm of the British Government that is responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United Kingdom.

DEFRA also leads for the UK at the EU on agricultural, fisheries and environment matters and in other international negotiations on sustainable development and climate change; although a new Department of Energy and Climate Change was created on October 3, 2008 to take over the last responsibility.

A 1998 official, governmental study of boar living wild in Britain confirmed the presence of two populations: one that roamed Kent and East Sussex and another which had made Dorset its home; both of which colonies allegedly arose as a result of damage to fences during the devastating hurricane of 1987 that allowed the animals to escape from their enclosures.

Another DEFRA report, prepared in February 2008, again confirmed the existence of these two sites as “established breeding areas and also identified a third colony: in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire; specifically in the Forest of Dean/Ross on Wye area. A “new breeding population” was also identified in Devon.

According to DEFRA’s current estimates, the Kent-East Sussex population stands at around 200 animals; with perhaps 60 in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, less than 50 in Dorset, and probably a similar figure in evidence throughout Devon.

more here: Mania.com