Wild boar warnings may be just a pig in a poke

I RECEIVED a press release from the Irish Wildlife Trust objecting to the wild boar being classified as an invasive species in Ireland.

My research threw up surprising results.

There seem to be quite a few of these animals roaming our countryside. There are reports of sightings in half a dozen different counties and some reports are of females with young. This indicates several separate breeding populations. By my estimate, about a dozen animals have been shot since 2009. Again, these occur in widely separated parts of the country. There is a concentration in Co Wicklow, but there are also confirmed shootings in Offaly and Tipperary.