Our wild wild forest

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My neighbour is afraid to walk outside when it's dark. One can imagine many scary things in the night but maybe you're not thinking about wild boars.... Is she silly or is she right to be afraid of them? I met up with the experienced hunter Pierre Landais to get things sorted out.

He looks exactly the way you imagine a hunter. He has that burned, ragged look on his face and looks dogged och tough. Boars are not dangerous, he says. They have an excellent hearing and a fantastic smell to discover a human several hundred metres away. They are afraid of humans! But there are two occasions when boars can become dangerous: if they are hurt or if you threaten the babies of a mummy boar. If you step upon a boar in the forest, just slowly back off. They usually sleep during daytime, so you should normally never see any.

The last fifteen years the boar population has grown enormously in Landes. They have no natural enemies, except humans, and grow fat in the corn fields. The farmers put up electric fences to keep them out, but if they are hungry enough, they go there anyway! Sometimes the babies go under the fence and then mum comes along, whatever the fence.

Boars are intelligent and have an excellent memory. If they have been trapped at a specific spot once, they never return.

After my personal experience I would add, and if they like a spot, they do return. We had a boar attack in our garden, around the pool. Yummiest place to find real nice earth worms. The single male returned three times in a week, then it took a whole year before we had the next attack on the exact same spot. Can't swear it was the same animal of course, but seems pretty likely. Once he left, there was not much left of the grass. Looked like a spring field prepared for sowing...