Is it a wild boar or a feral pig in Scottish Highlands? Does it really matter what we call it? And how can an animal that was once native end up on the list of non-native invasive species? In ten years of this podcast, wild boar came up many times in episodes about hunting, genetics, rewilding and even swine fever, yet we never had an episode dedicated to them. Today we fix that. Descendants of animals that escaped or were released from farms now roam the Scottish Highlands, but there is still no agreement on what they are, whether they belong and what should be done about them. As it turns out, the name matters a great deal. It shapes how people relate to the animal, how they react when they meet it and how, or if, it is managed. And many of the same questions are being asked here in Ireland.
To discuss this topic I’m joined by Toryn Whitehead, a PhD researcher in the Department of Geography at King’s College London and one of the authors of the paper ‘Feral Pigs or Wild Boar? Emerging Interpretations of Belonging and Coexistence in the Scottish Highlands’. Toryn’s path to this work is unusual, as he started out with a degree in chemistry before swapping the lab bench for interviews with crofters, gamekeepers and landowners. During our conversation, we go through the history of wild boar in Scotland, from their extirpation centuries ago to the farm imports of the 1980s. We discuss the strange legal situation where the same animal is a wild boar inside the fence and a feral pig once it steps outside. Toryn also explains the ‘extinction of experience’ and why, even though wild boar feature in clan crests and old songs, one crofter told him they are ‘vermin, not game’.
We also talk about the hands-off approach of the Scottish government, which leaves landowners to decide what to do with the animals on their land, and the tensions this creates between neighbours, especially when a rewilding estate becomes a safe haven for boar. We touch on the threat of African swine fever and the lack of any reliable data on numbers and impacts, which leaves plenty of room for misinformation. Toryn shares the story of a video of a sow charging a dog that spread quickly through Facebook and WhatsApp. To some it was an attack, while people from Spain and Estonia saw a mother protecting her piglet. Finally, Toryn tells us about his work with other researchers and NGOs to start a national conversation about these animals, and why empathy matters so much when a species returns after centuries of absence.
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