Wild Boar

Indian Wild Boar is also well known to be a wild Pig resembling the domestic pig in the country region.

Wild Boar belongs to the Kingdom Animalia and Phylum Chordata, biological name to be called as Sus Scrofa Cristatus and belonging to family Suidae.

Indian wild boar is almost seen in most of the Wild life Protection sanctuaries. The quick classification of the Indian Boar is as below,

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Mammalia
Order	Artiodactyla
Family	Suidae
Genus	Sus
Species	Sus Scrofa

Physical Structure

Indian Wild Boar having the similar Pig-like features weighs around 100 kgs by average and even some of its species would range a weight of around 225 kgs. Elongated canines are the significant difference between a Wild Boar and that of a domestic pig, and that grows upward. Spine-like hairs spread over its coat. An average measure for an Indian Wild Boar would be ranging 80 to 90 cms, and it has short legs.
The skin shows a Grayish Black colored hard and rough structure, and that coat protects it from most of its hurts affecting the species. Sensitivity of smelling through nose is more compared with other sensitive wild animals, while the same has eye sight and hearing capability at an average level. And it has a small and straight tail.

Indian Wild Boar is seen in most of the Wild Sanctuaries in the Indian Sub-continent.

They can be seen in small groups ranging from 5 to 6 in the interior of the forest regions. There were about seven different species found in the earlier days and now the count has declined to very small number, that only two species of its kind are found. The Indian Wild Boar is one of its kind which can be seen most widely, and the other being the Pigmy Hog which is said to be identified in the recent days and very rarely found species, that is found in the state of Assam's northern parts.

Grazing and damaging the farm land regions for feeding, around the Sanctuaries and Forest are their known characteristics. Exposing their courage with animals like even Tigers, Leopards with ultimate strength and even quite often defeating the same can be seen from well grown Indian Wild Boars. From dusk to dawn the Indian wild boars forage and hence they are identified as nocturnal animals.

Places Found

Almost in many of the sanctuaries, the Indian Wild Boar can be seen since they do not have constraints for seasonal dependencies or the variation in weather conditions at different regions in the Indian Subcontinent. The following are some of the Wild life sanctuaries where these species can be widespread.

Bandhavgarh National Park: Bandhavgarh National Park is located at Madhya Pradesh, India with an area of about 450 square kilometers. The thick forest of Bandhavgarh National Park sits in between the cliffs of the Vindhyan Mountains. The forest has the wildlife attractions like Indian leopard, Elephants, Tiger, Nilgai, Chausingha, Chital, Chinkara, Indian Muntjac Chital, Sambar, Wild Boar and Fox or Golden Jackal. Elephant safari and Jeep safari are conducted in order to view all the wildlife of Bandhavgarh National park.

Jim Corbett National Park : The Jim Corbett National Park is located in Ramnagar in the district of Nainital, Uttaranchal, at the foothills of Himalayas. The biggest attraction in this park is the wide variety of wildlife, breathtaking natural vegetation and trekking trails. The usual way to explore the Jim Corbett's park is through the Jeep or Elephant safaris.

It is one of the most popular tourists' place. It is the house of 50 species of mammals, variety of faunas and floras.

The most common animals are Leopard, Deer, Royal Bengal tiger, Indian elephants, Para or Hog Deer, Barking deer, Wild boar, Chital, etc.

Sariska Tiger Reserve: The Sariska Tiger Reserve is a national park in India located in the Alwar district of Rajasthan. The park is situated at a distance of 107 km from Jaipur and 200 km from Delhi. This area was a hunting reserve and it was declared a wildlife reserve in 1955. In 1978, the park was given the rank of a tiger reserve making it a part of India's Project Tiger system. The current area of the park is 866 kms. Most commonly spotted carnivores here are leopard, Bengal tiger, wild jackal, wild dog, sambhar, chital, hyena, wild cat, nilgai, wild boar, etc.

National Chambal Sanctuary : The National Chambal Sanctuary which was founded in the year 1979, comes under the co-administration of three different states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, extending a wide area of 340 Sq.kms.It is located near the township Agra. Gangetic Dolphins are the wide seen species in this sanctuary and the other wild life species found here are Wild Boar, Crocodile, Gazelle, sambhar, etc.

Food habits

Wild Boars do not depend completely on either of the vegetation crops or other species, they usually have anything as their diet. Even Fruit nuts, small insects, reptiles, roots, berries, tubers, and they also hunt for lambs or small deer, beating as predators. Defending capabilities like slashing their predators with extreme force and upward pointed tusks is a usual hunting behavior of the Wild Male boar.

Mating behavior

There is no specific mating season for the Indian Wild Boars. It will be a fighting combat between the male boars and the stronger one gets to mate with the female boars, at the mating period. Four months is an average gestation period for it and a span of one year is their maturity period.

Spring season is time for the female wild boars to give birth for the new cubs, and the number would certainly range from four

to six cubs and this might even extend upto a maximum of 14 cubs for bigger female boars. The littering process will be around 2 to 3 hours and the new born cubs will be under the shadow of its mother for another four to five days. Once this period is over the cubs even take their cross feeding from other female boar litters.

Population of boars in India

It is factual happening that there is a fast decline in the population of the Indian Wild Boars, which is said to be the reason that widespread rapid hunting of animals for purpose of their meat. The number of species has also come down to one or two from about five to six species at times in the Indian subcontinent. The species decline rate shows that it comes under the category of one among the vanishing species in Indian subcontinent.

Sub-Species of Wild Boar

Based on distinct geographical areas, Sus scrofa has four different subspecies
Sus scrofa cristatus (Asia Minor, India)
Sus scrofa scrofa (western Africa, Europe)
Sus scrofa ussuricus (northern Asia and Japan)
Sus scrofa vittatus (Indonesia)

Threats to Indian Boars

Human predators are the major threat for the wild boars and other than that Leopard, Tiger and Lion are also some of the wild predators. The wild boars are hunted down by human and this is due to the reason they would be either damaging their farm lands or for the meat purpose. As it is described the gigantic male wild boars can defend themselves from their predators by their outward canines and the female wild boars protect themselves and its cubs to defend their predators by hitting with more force and will and with wide open its mouth to bite their predators.

Poaching has been widespread for meat and mainly due to the damage done by the wild boars grazing outside the forest regions,

even though hunting wild animals are strictly prohibited by law.

Conservation effort in India

Scenarios are there showing that with permissions from authorities, hunting has been allowed for the reason that wild boars are damaging the crops. This can be widely seen in the state of Punjab. Conflicts between humans and wild boars have been adversely wide spread. Wild boars getting into the ground vegetation areas, forest plantations, agricultural crops and orchards are common destructive attacks given by them and in turn the local people make preventive measures and most of the times they hunt down the wild boars. But of late this has been reduced due to the conservation efforts made by the wild life protection authorities.

Boars as a symbol in various religions:

Boars are having significant place in different religious beliefs in today's life and in historic and mythological views. It is mentioned in the history of Hindu religious writings that Wild Boar is one of the seven avatars of the Hindu God Lord Vishnu, which is the third avatar. Boars were even had as emblems in the Roman Legions.

In Norse mythology Gullinbursiti which is defined as Gold Mane (after the Norse God named Freyr, who had a boar) or Golden Bristles (after the Norse God named Freyja, who had one boar Hildesvini) is believed to be a Boar. Erymanthian boar and Calydonian boar are two well known boars, hunted by Hercules and in the Calydonian hunt by other mythological heroes, respectively.

Interesting Facts

Even though the wild pig is believed to be same to look alike, the name boar should be used for Wild Pig and not for domestic Pig. The Wild boars have a very thick coat compared to that of a domestic Pig and the bristles that spreads over the coat is shorter. The wild boars are called as "Captain Cookers" in New Zealand after Captain James Cook, an explorer.

Hogzila which was the name given for a Wild boar, was shot in Georgia, a sensational news in the Internet which was found to be a large wild boar by the scientists sent by National Geographic explorer.