Wild Pigs

[minionofmidas]

Read some interesting stuff a couple days ago on how, despite hunting for half of the year and the ever-increasing dangers of traffic, food poisoning etc, the wild pig populations of Germany are not just remaining stable but growing again.

Used to be that old males mated with quite a number of females and young males went without - in fact they didn't live anywhere near the women. (And outside breeding season, so don't the old males IIRC.) Thing is, average number of females per mating boar has decreased dramatically. Average age not just of males but also of females at the time they first become parents is down.
So how do you call that? Societal change? Breakdown of the traditional family? And what is (subjectively, from the pigs' point of view) causing it?

[opebo]

Interesting comparison.. I usually think of us as an ape-society, but I suppose we have something in common with pigs as well.  Say, are they delicious, these wild hogs?

[minionofmidas]

Supposedly so. I'm not into pork much myself.
The part I find most interesting, actually, is that, in pigs as well as in humans and other types of great apes, there is societal change. Probably everywhere else in the animal world if only we'd be able to see well enough.

[Bono]

DO you actuallymean feral pigs, or wild boars?
If you mean teh latter, the same happens here as a result of the abandonment of agriculture.

[minionofmidas]

The latter.

[Bono]

The latter.

well, I can't speak for Germany, but what happend in Portugal over the last couple of decades with wild boars was that the rural exodus left many formerly agricultural fields abandoned, which increased their habitat and food sources. They have become real threats to remaining agriculture, and they are regulary hunted with control purposes. Lots of people come to hunt them from everywhere, making the big group huntings a reasonable source of revenue for country villages actually.

[CARLHAYDEN]

We have a special season for Javelina.

[Bono]

We have a special season for Javelina.

So doth we.

[??????????]

They are very good eating

[Everett]

They are very good eating

Indeed.

[??????????]

They are very good eating

Indeed.

Also, they are very mean and I know a couple of people who have been attacked by them while out hunting. One nutty guy I know uses a knife and his bare hands. He jumps down from a tree branch on top of the pig and slices its throat. Honest to God truth.

[CARLHAYDEN]

I use a Redhawk.

[Bono]

They are very good eating

Indeed.

^^

[minionofmidas]

The latter.

well, I can't speak for Germany, but what happend in Portugal over the last couple of decades with wild boars was that the rural exodus left many formerly agricultural fields abandoned, which increased their habitat and food sources.

Those times are well past in Germany.