This boar was atheist, no doubt!

[Skybird]

And now he is dead - should that tell me something?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...593287,00.html

I know from Berlin that in parts of the city, especially the former american quarters that are in close vicinity of the huge forest areas around the Schlachtensee, boars coming into the human settlements and searching wastebins for food have become a huge problem, by numbers and also because they have lost their natural shyness towards humans.

In the mid-80s, when I was actively engaged with photography, one day I was carefully sneaking around in an area at the Havel and Wannsee, very early in the morning, dense thickets it was, with camera equipment on the ready. Originally I was looking for swans that assembled there in huge numbers (dozens and dozens, that's why a beach close by is called "Schwanenwerder"), but then stumbled over a wild sow with her cubs (?) - and she really did not like the encounter and started to go after me. I had to let go my photobag, and ran - probably a new personal time record. An hour latr i coiuld return and pick up my equipment, which obviously had been examined by aliens, but survived the procedure unharmed. Well, although at 18 or 19 you do not think that much about stupid things you do (like climbing into a thicket were you suspect a wild boar...), back then (mid-80s) the problem still was not that big like it is today. When I visited my parents in Berlin in later years, and we walked in the Grunewald, we practically met wild boars and wild sows every time, and sometimes they passed us in just some meters distance, like dogs would do it, and did nothing. But many people would almost panic then, also these animals are very intelligent, and very curious, they started to actively seek the closeness to humans in order to examine the new surrounding, and to find food. And thehn there are those dumbheads who even feed them, like they feed ducks. This together with humans acting unreasonable, and maybe little kids envolved, of course always holds the potential for critical conflict. And if you do not have a weapon, there is little you can do to fight off an angry wild boar that is going after you.

Fascinating animals, I like them - but not in my garden, and in groups of a dozen.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skybird

...but then stumbled over a wild sow with her cubs (?)

Individually they are 'piglets', but many piglets together is a 'litter'.
The piglets and the sow together are a 'sounder'.


Quite a few boar in the UK now. Enough to raise the same questions.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

Individually they are 'piglets', but many piglets together is a 'litter'.
The piglets and the sow together are a 'sounder'.

Reminds me of trying to explain cricket rules.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Reminds me of trying to explain cricket rules.

:rotfl:

[AntEater]

Lol, in german, boars are called "wild pigs" (Wildschweine), but the terms for females and offspring are different.
Domestic pigs are "Sau" (Sow) and "Ferkel"
Boars are "Bache" (female) and "Frischlinge" (piglets, litterally "freshlings")
"Eber" is the same for both kinds of male pigs, but a large male boar is called a "Keiler".
A group of adult boars is a "Rotte".

That's about my hunter's latin

But if you live close to forrests in Frankfurt, you can expect to run into boars.
Best course of action is to ignore them, they're usually quite shy.
The whole incident took place in Schwanheim, which is close to the city forrest and a natural preserve called the Schwanheim dunes.
Essentially suburbia stuck between the forrest, the dunes and a waste processing plant
A few km further west, in Rüsselsheim, a whole Rotte of about 6 rampaged across "downtown" (not really) Rüsselsheim until police cornered them in a parking lot.
What followed was an exercise in being german:
Police called hunters. Hunters refused to hunt boars because their hunting permit only allows them to hunt in the wild, but not in forrests.
Police agrees. Hunters want to give the police their hunting rifles, but police refuses on the ground that they are only permitted to use the weapons prescriped in Hesse state police law, which do not include hunting rifles. Sniper rifles are allowed but a SEK (SWAT) team is not on hand.
Hunters go away, Police break out the MP5s.
150 rounds of auto fire later, all 6 boars are dead and some dozen cars have new holes in them.
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Skybird]

Good story, good laugh - but honest - is it true? I mean the part on using MPs and damaging cars?

Originally Posted by AntEater

150 rounds of auto fire later, all 6 boars are dead and some dozen cars have new holes in them.
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Didn't they have sidearms? Sheesh, machinegunning boars and hitting cars, good thing not the gas tank.