Wild boar      Metssiga        Sus scrofa

The life of wild boars without swine fever continues only in Hiiumaa and some smaller islands as for instance Naissaare. Some boars move on the mainland too, but if they have recovered from the ASF nobody can say or prove as yet.

At the end of November the mating period of wild boar starts. The adult males move closer to the flocks led by sows. If the sows have not already driven off the young boars born in early spring the adult males will force the young competitors to leave.

In  unfrozen ground the main food of the wild boar consists mostly of  parts of plants around  the surface. At the feeding sites arranged by hunters for boars there is little grain for the animals due to the legal restrictions (about 5 kilos per day). The fields intended for animals were also damaged by the excessive wet.

The boars get animal proteins from molluscs, insects and their larvae and from hibernating amphibians on digging and by hunting for small rodents. Any found cadavers are useful too.

On the mainland up to half of the leguminous crops were left unharvested – bean and pea fields, in places also potatoes; there too wild animals move around…