Going on a boar hunt

When a young sow pulls off a Houdini act, it falls to Peter Carne to track her down before she does too much damage to Hampshire

There is a village called Boarhunt in Hampshire, but the term has had no local significance for centuries — until recently. This is hardly surprising as wild boar died out in Britain several hundred years ago, and all attempts to reintroduce them have, so far, been signally unsuccessful.

This being so, there is a certain amount of mystery about the origin of a genuine wild boar that gave itself a few months ago to a Hampshire village policeman, who found it strolling in his back garden. Accepting captivity with a surprising lack of protest, the beast was found a home in a wildlife park close to where I live.

Another wild pig was known to be at large in the same locality as the first one. This second beast, less cunning or less wise, was also less fortunate. After being seen in various places, among them a shoot where it shared the pheasants’ food and a motorway across which it was prone to jaywalk, it fell to the rifle of a man whose culling activities are normally confined to the local wild deer.

Thus ended the first act of the play; not quite the drama nor a farce but perhaps a tragi-comedy. Act two opened with the arrival of a yearling sow as intended consort for the boar, which preferred the cosseting of captivity to the hazards of freedom.AL

Instead of settling down to a life of wedded bliss, within a few hours of her arrival, the bride broke out of her married quarters without so much as a consummation by squeezing under a supposedly pig-proof gate. She capped this Houdini act by somehow negotiating the perimeter fence of the wildlife park itself. Beyond lay freedom and the assorted fruits of the Hampshire countryside.