From Mr C. A. Cousin

Last week I came across a copy of the December edition of the magazine Taste, published by Proximus Publishing, which is distributed with The Malta Independent on Sunday. I read with particular interest the article by assistant editor Beppe Coleiro entitled “Boar” and noticed that it contains a number of inaccuracies I would like to clarify

Allow me to begin with the title and the contents of the article. The article is about the wild boar: however, the title is misleading since the word “boar” is used to indicate the adult male of any species or breed of wild pigs or domestic pigs respectively. “Wild boar” refers to a particular species of mammals, that is, the “Wild Boar” (Sus scrofa) and therefore male individuals only are termed as “boars”.

I shall try to be as concise as possible. It is not correct to say that the tusks grow to 16 centimetres, since they grow longer than that and may even exceed 30 centimetres. It stated that “some breeds of boar weigh in at up to 300 kg”; this is rather confusing since there are no breeds of boar but subspecies of wild boar and an adult may weigh more than 300 kg, especially those that thrive in Russian lands.

Another aspect tackled by the article was about how the wild boar was introduced into the Americas. The Spanish settlers did not take the domesticated wild boar but they took breed(s) of the domestic pig. However, it is also doubtful whether the Spanish settlers did actually introduce the first domestic pigs to America since some sources claim that it was a man from Genoa who preceded the arrival of the Spanish settlers.

The species of wild boar was introduced much later than the 16th century. Furthermore, it is incorrect to say that before these happenings “there were no species of boar or pig in the Americas” since the peccary (a species of wild pig) did and still thrives there. In the continent of America there is more than one species of peccary. With regard to the range of the wild boar it is not true that “it covers all the continents”.

In fact it is neither found at the most southern and northern latitudes of continents nor in large parts of Africa, America and Australia, as well as correctly mentioned in the article, not even in Antarctica. Another misconception given was that the boar was extinct in Germany.

To be accurate, the boar was never extinct in this country. The article also referred to the hunter armed with a gun as facing a largely illusionary challenge. Here emphasis should be made on the word “largely”, which I question. After having enlightened myself both through reading and speaking with people who did experience real wild boars, I would rather remove largely and retain illusionary.

However, it should be stated that an injured boar is a truly dangerous creature that nobody would ever wish to encounter and hence a hunter, whether armed with a gun or a knife, may face a real challenge when hunting. My last correction is about the meaning attributed to the word omnivore; the article stated that “the boar is omnivorous, and this means it will feast on the eggs and young offspring of indigenous species”. This is untrue since the word omnivorous implies that it feeds on both plants, such as acorns, and animal tissue or products.

But apart from the inaccuracies, I was rather much more impressed when I read through the section of the article entitled “The Wild Boar in Britain”. As I was reading I recalled that I had already read similar text elsewhere. Eventually I managed to remember that similar or identical text was on the website at http://www.britishwildboar.org.uk/ and entitled “British Wild Boar”. No mention of this website is made in the article and hence the source is unquoted. This really put me off, as it seemed that the work is not a truly original one. This led me to also check out the sources from where the images were obtained. Once again there is no reference especially to images of certain old drawings

For the sake of accuracy and clarity I am reproducing the article from the website and indicating in inverted commas the whole parts that were also published in Taste without making reference to the original source.

“The date at which wild boar finally became extinct in Britain is unclear due to subsequent attempts at re-introduction.” In continental Europe, wild boar were (and still are) widely distributed” and “attempts were made in the 18th and 19th centuries to re-introduce animals to Britain from abroad, initially into private estates for hunting purposes. James 1 released animals firstly from France and then from Germany into Windsor Park in 1608 and 1611 respectively.” His son, Charles 1 (reigned 1625-1649), also “released boar into the New Forest from Germany.” These re-introductions were not successful in the long term as the majority of people regarded wild boar as (agricultural) “pests and saw to their destruction”.

“It is thought that the original British wild boar were probably extinct by the 13th century, and the re-introduced animals became extinct during the 17th century. Between the 17th century and the 1980s, when wild boar farming began, only a handful of captive wild boar, imported from” the continent as zoo exhibits, were present in Britain.” Until very recently, no free-living wild boar (native or introduced) “have been present in Britain for” the last 300 years.

Through this letter I hope that I have managed to give better information about the wild boar. Furthermore, I think that it may serve as an indirect compliment to those people who tend to be accurate in their writings and ethically correct, since there are readers who do appreciate such things.

Christopher Cousin

SENGLEA