Welcome to Wildwood's New Year baby – cute baby boarlet is the first arrival of 2011

Wildwood, Kent’s unique wildlife and woodland park, is celebrating its first new arrival of 2011; a baby wild boar.

The new baby is the first piglet to be born to proud parents Pru and Sydney and marked the New Year in style by arriving on New Year’s Day. The baby is as yet unnamed until its sex can be determined.

Keeper Judi Dunn said “I am so excited for Pru and Sydney, this is their first baby and Pru is doing very well as a new mum. It’s lovely to see the piglet starting to go out and about to explore the enclosure and avoiding the puddles after the recent rain.”

Wild boar piglets are born with stripes to help camouflage them in the undergrowth and typically stay in the nest for about 10 days. The young are suckled for about 12 weeks before they are completely weaned, after which they find their food by rooting around the woodland floor with their mother.

Wildwood Trust is campaigning to save wild boar from being hunted to extinction and has asked the Government to legalise the status of this animal and let it take its rightful place in the British Countryside, helping to restore our natural woodlands.

Wild boar form an integral part of the historic landscape of Britain and help woodland flowers, insects, animals and trees regenerate creating countryside richer in wildlife. The Wildwood Trust has been lobbying to ensure that Wild boar are given a chance to regain their natural place in our woodlands to encourage a landscape that’s rich in flowers, butterflies and birds.

Wild boar are just one of the huge range of British animals that can be seen at the Wildwood, near Canterbury , off the A291 between Herne Bay and Canterbury. For more information visit our website at www.wildwoodtrust.org or telephone 0871 782 008.

Wild Boar Facts

The European Wild Boar (Sus scrofa), ancestor of the domesticated pig, is the largest of the present-day wild hogs - the males or boars sometimes reaching a height of 40 inches at the shoulder and a weight of 350 pounds. A male wild boar is armed with a pair of large sharp strong tusks, the upper canine teeth, which curve outward and upward, reaching a length of ten inches in old age. The female or sow bears litters of 3 to 12 striped young in a nest hidden in thick brush.

Some facts concerning the Wild Boar:

• The Wild Boar has a gregarious nature and is mainly woodland-dwelling.
• Wild boar mainly feed on deer truffles, acorns, nuts, tubers, insects, earthworms and some carrion.
• Vocalisations are very important, and wild boar are constantly grunting and chirruping to each other, and squeal when alarmed.
• Wild boar are usually not dangerous and do not attack other animals and people. However, they can be very aggressive, especially females with young, or injured animals.
• Wild boar are naturally timid and (normally!) run away at the sight of people.
• Wild boar have a life span of between 15 and 20 years.

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 1st released animals firstly from France and then from Germany into Windsor Park in 1608 and 1611 respectively. His son, Charles 1st (reigned 1625-1649), also released boar into the New Forest from Germany.

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.