Tell UK Government and Local Councillors to Stop the Mindless Killing and Torture of Wild Boar
- by: Concerned Citizens, Friends of the Boar
- recipient: Richard Benyon MP, Dept Environment, UK; Tim Rollinson, Director General, Forestry Commission; Leader, Forest of Dean District Council.
Please sign, this a real campaign on the verge of doing positive change early next year. It is the result of tireless work of people like you. These poor animals ARE being killed for fun and profit and it must stop now.
Britain has had the pleasure of Wild Boar being re-introduced back into British Forests after a 300 years absence.
But the UK Government's forest managers, The Forestry Commission, are now killing the boar without ANY accountability, and with a plan of management that is nothing more than hunting and farming the boar for the pleasure of hunting alone and for profit to help with "management" costs.
We ask the local Councils across the UK to intervene, as they can, and ask seriously probing questions of the Forestry Commission with regard to cull targets, boar population, population dynamics and welfare issues about their wild boar, until the law is changed.
On forest edges, organised sport hunts are also taking place without consideration of boar welfare, and random killing of boar by individuals, sometimes with severely inadequate firearms continues without legal constraint.
Under the present climate of austerity and cuts, The Forestry Commission are fast realising that boar meat is profitable and will keep their own rangers employed in the killing of the boar.
DEFRA (UK Government Dept for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) prefer to wash their hands of the issue. They turn a blind-eye, encouraging landowners, farmers, the Forestry Commission and local Councils to determine how to "manage" the wild boar for themselves without any legal framework or scientific understanding of wild boar ecology or breeding patterns. It is a blood-stained free-for-all and in no way can be considered as conservation.
Now 20 years old, populations of boar are still tiny compared to Europe and the USA, in part due to the UK having the poorest record of woodland cover in Europe.
One of the best places to see boar in the UK is The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. Here we are witness to piglets and/or mothers being shot, with many piglets left to die or orphaned too early in life. Family units are torn apart. The butchery is all year round.
The hunting pressure is rapidly increasing due to the local Forestry Commission sending out a totally unscientific and subjective judgement that population is always on the verge of explosion with their methods of culling being the only answer. They base their argument on other countries who have also suffered from poor hunting and cull management strategies.
We desperately require your pressure to petition DEFRA and The Forestry Commission to:
1. Provide the boar with a Closed Season on hunting, a protection afforded to every other game species except them.
2. Legislate for a legal minimum firearms calibre, rather than poor and unenforceable "guidance" that currently exists.
3. Legislate against the killing of all piglets unless under exceptional circumstances.
4. Provide legal requirement for a standardised yearly boar census.
Without this protection, we will soon witness hunting forever increasing in intensity.
Overhunting is easily achieved without science to assess a population. Over-hunting creates baby booms that can result in starvation or boar moving into villages and towns as we see in Berlin http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/tell-berlin-to-scrap-boar-hunting-plan/. Our sympathies go out to the boar in Berlin who have also found huge support from the public. The remedy is to curtail hunting, base it upon science, and to stop feeding the boar, both by people and especially the hunters who bait killing stations at high seats.
Over-culling is worst when profit or bloodlust is a driver of the killing, as usually it is.
Boars are now starting to move into villages in the Forest of Dean. People begin to feed them. This also promotes increased fertility and fitness, and so the population grows and the boars become habituated. Very quickly the “Cultural Carrying Capacity” is reduced with calls for more culling to solve a perceived problem. The problem of hunting rarely gets into the pages of the increasingly controlled media. Hunting without legislation and control is known to exaggerate the problem it proposes to solve, leading to a vicious cycle of increasing abuse of boar and other wild animals.
To date no humans have ever been attacked by a wild boar for no reason, as they are by nature shy and prefer to be left alone. A few dogs have been bitten or head-butted due mainly to dogs running off the lead and being aggressive or provocative towards the boars. The boars deserve peace, and the public require more education.
Please, they desperately need your support.
Visit http://www.friendsoftheboar.blogspot.com/ for more information on this issue.
Dear Sirs,
We are appalled to learn that there is no closed season for wild boar in the UK. A closed season would ensure a minimum standard of welfare for piglets and lactating sows, as well as stability within the family units of boars as a whole.
We believe that the majority of citizens here in the UK and around the world would support a move to introduce a closed season on hunting and/or managing of wild boar, a much loved animal that sits deeply within our psyche.
A closed season would encourage a natural and healthy population to stabilise closely to the natural carrying capacity of their environment. This would alleviate the potential for over-population we see across some parts of Europe brought about by poor cull management. Such poor management and welfare abuses are already evident in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, with evidence already having been presented to you by Friends of the Boar in 2011.
Indeed, the Forestry Commission now see hunting boar as a welcome and additional source of revenue in times of austerity, rather than basing any cull upon proper management of a wild population of animals intrinsic to a healthy ecosystem.
The Forestry Commission now admit they are acting subjectively in their calculation of cull targets. This has been highlighted in the British press. This is occurring in the knowledge that the DEFRA will turn a blind eye to any failures of judgement, especially considering that the Forestry Commission are themselves a part of the Government's "DEFRA family" who we are now appealing to. This is abuse of power as well as of the boar.
In short, DEFRA's lack of legislation, and Will to serve the wishes of the people in this matter is resulting in the persecution of wild boar for profit and fun and we urgently request this situation is changed immediately.
We have a very young population of wild boar in the UK but it is vital you legislate for seasonal protection NOW in order to minimize the risks of booming populations and unwelcome human interaction. This season would be from March-August inclusive in the first instance, with periodic re-assessment.
Furthermore, we are equally appalled that anyone can shoot at a wild boar on their land with any weapon they so choose. Minimum weapon and calibre standards need to be put into law.
Proper management begins with a scientific evaluation of wild boar population numbers. Management that is based upon prejudice and subjectivity is abhorrent and leads only to welfare abuse. Cull targets based upon poor science and ecological understanding will also lead to abuse and problems for society as wild boar numbers becoming destabilised with increasing human-contact as boar flee persecution and find refuge in people who feed them
We humbly request you to urgently act as we suggest before it is too late and please introduce some law, science and humanity into the caring of a much-loved wild creature.
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