Police Seek Owners of Captured Boar in Caithness

Authorities in Caithness are attempting to locate the owners of a pig that was reportedly roaming freely. The animal, identified as a hybrid of a wild boar and a domestic pig, has since been apprehended. On social media platforms, some individuals have speculated that the animal could be one of Scotland’s feral pigs, which roam freely. These animals are estimated to number in the low thousands, primarily inhabiting regions of the Highlands and Dumfries and Galloway. Police Scotland issued a statement regarding the situation: “We are urgently trying to trace the owner of a wild boar cross domestic pig that has been captured after being on the run loose in Caithness recently. If this is your boar, please call us on 101 quoting incident ref 1337 of Thursday 5 December 2024.” Wild boar are indigenous to Scotland, though they were hunted to extinction approximately 700 years ago. Over the past decade or so, populations of free-roaming pigs have become established in areas such as Dumfries and Galloway and the Highlands. NatureScot, Scotland’s nature agency, designates these animals as feral pigs. The agency noted that these populations comprise hybrids, resulting from the interbreeding of wild boar and domestic pigs. Furthermore, these populations consist of animals that have either escaped from agricultural holdings or were unlawfully introduced into the wild. According to Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), a public agency, their numbers are estimated to be in the low thousands. These pigs have been implicated in causing damage to both agricultural land and forested areas. Since April, FLS rangers have carried out culls of 46 feral pigs.