American Wild Boar Brief History

Wild boar is a species of pig coming from the family of Suidae. They are native to Northern and Central Europe. In the Americas and Australia they have been artificially introduced for hunting. They are known for destroying family farms and river beds. In many areas hunters hunt boars to save the local food source. With large numbers of boars being hunted every year some of the spices of wild boar have disappeared. Now when wild boars numbers drop, hunting of those spices is limited or stopped. 

Throughout the world the wild boar vary in weight from 110 to 700 pounds. Smaller breads are from the tropic areas. The heaviest boars come from Romania and Russia. The American Wild Boar rang from 150 to 250 pounds. Only one species lives in the US, Sus Scrofa from the hog family called Sui. In 1893, 50 feral pigs from Germany's Black Forest were released in New Hampshire’s Blue Mountains. In 1910 Russian wild boars were introduced to North Carolina and Tennessee. Again in 1925 Russian boars were released in Monterey and Santa Cruz Islands in California. Today 25 US state are homes to the wild boar. The largest numbers are found in Florida, Texas, and California.  

The natural habitats for American Wild Boars are swamps, brush lands, woodlands, mountain forest and anything near agricultural fields. They can adapt to any habitat in search of food. They will travel in a ten mile area for most of their life’s which can be as long as 25 years. If food is in short supple they will travel as far as they need to find a new area to eat. They are very inelegant are compared to the wolf in learning skills.

American Wild Boars give birth to 4 to 8 piglets at a time.  When if introduced to American the boars were placed on farms and had controlled reproduction. Boars escaped these farms and started breeding in the wild, creating a large problem for farmers and their crops. Populations of 4 million boars cause an estimated $800 million in property damage per year. Natural predators range from large birds to wolves. These predators attack the piglets. Once the boar is past the piglet stage it goes to the top of the food chain in America. In other parts of the world tigers, pythons and leopards can take down an adult boar. Bears, humans, packs of wolves and panthers are known in the US to hunt boars. In the wild boars are known to eat rattlesnakes, birds, eggs, worms, and smaller animals dead or alive. Whitetail deer have to compete with the boars for nuts, mushrooms, and roots.  

Every state has there own rules and regulations on how many boars you can hunted and if you can do it on private or public land. Some countries like Norway pay farmers to kill wild boars. Feral boars are on the unprotected wild animals list and have no season in most states. They cause so much damage that they can be hunted in large numbers. Most states have made raising feral boars illegal and they can never be released into the wild. Wild boars have destroyed native plants and even small animal populations. 

Now go out and do your part to stop these wild Animals from destroy our natural resources.  A wild boar can be used in many culinary dishes. The bones are used for stocks and the skin can be used for a little fried snack. Contact your local fish and game office to learn about the rules for hunting this tastie animals. Happy Hunting.