10377 Wild boar making threatening noises at me?

A reason to give up smoking perhaps??? lol

[quote=bosco;96433]
He makes a loud snort which is almost a roar, and if I roar back he 'replies' and we then have a snorting/roaring 'conversation' that goes on until one of us gives up..... Am I being threatened?
[/quote]

Probably! However, I think you are also being silly to engage your boar in conversation. Unless your knowledge and understanding (not to mention your pronunciation) of boar lingo is perfect how do you know you are not being gratuitously offensive....or perhaps your roars sound a tad on the feminine side :smile: in which case it is probably boar love!

Should we buy new hats?

[ATTACH]2107[/ATTACH]

Perhaps he wants a fag too?, seriously though I know of one woman who spent a long time up a tree with the boar snorting below her, this boar probably sees you as a threat, I would be very careful, why dont you ask advice from your Italian neighbours?.
A

Keep on "talking" to the boar, it does not hurt anyone and I think it is hilarious.....

Sounds as though he's trying to sort out his territory. It could turn nasty as time goes on, and he gets bigger

Have a word with your neighbours - one of them is bound to offer to go halves on the meat if you let him shoot it

Result - you can smoke your ciggie in peace, whilst your neigbour smokes a piece of your cingale
. Happy all round

[quote=Angie and Robert;96440] why dont you ask advice from your Italian neighbours?.[/quote]
Mmmmmmmm! Roast wild pig...... yum.

I think I could hear your neighbours advice even from here... :bigergrin:

If I was being challenged by a large animal (which you clearly are), I'd make sure I was within a few steps of an open door and then chuck a fair-seized stone in his general direction. If that didn't persuade him that I was bigger and badder than him, I'd talk to a neighbour with a rifle.

Wildlife is great, but not when it's so bold and aggressive that it makes you too nervous to go outside.

In any case, your particular animal seems, for some reason, to have very little fear of humans. That suggests he's not going to be around too long once hunting season starts in a few weeks.

Bosco is going to have to practise running then, I dont think the season for hunting boar starts until November, but perhaps if the animal is a danger to people around it something can be done?...try saying "shoo shoo naughty boar"always works for me when I say shoo shoo naughty hunters when they are fireing over my terrace, or words to that effect.
A

Tell everyone about your boar and invite them round to see for themselves.

You won’t ever see it again!:laughs:

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Of course I didn't actually want advice, I wanted information. But I realise that was being a bit hopeful.

Yes, I have talked to Italian neighbours about my boar. By far the best suggestion was that I put out some of his favourite fruit (it was plums at the time) on an outside table laid with a nice white cloth and the best silver, wait until he comes round to eat them then video the result and put it on Youtube.

The hunters need no inviting - they come anyway. And although a few of them certainly look like some of the seedier characters from [I]Apocalypse Now[/I], the ones I've talked to have all seemed quite nice. it may interest people to know that our local hunters' association has now decided to devote some of its subscription money to buying farmers some boar fences, maintaining footpaths and setting up wild bird sanctuaries. Though quite how much fence, footpath and sanctuary they will get for their money I do not know.

The advice to be careful about winding up wild boars was sensible. In this case I was just outside my front door and the young boar was a couple of terraces below. But normally I treat them with the greatest of respect - particular mothers with the sweet and cuddly (don't try it!) stripy young, as they're supposed to be very dangerous indeed if you get between them and their babies.

And although full-grown adult males are not supposed to attack unless provoked, I wouldn't like to test it out. A couple of years ago I had to sit in the car for nearly ten minutes until one finally decided to get out of the road. He wasn't at all worried by the car, and I should think he weighed in at around 250 kilos. Terrifying!

Talking of menacing boars, well for a second I thought this news article online read "Boar Jumps Aboard For Mauling" No "Bear Jumps Aboard For Mauling"" I know in Canada but ..... [url=http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080911/twl-grizzly-jumps-aboard-for-mauling-3fd0ae9.html]Bear Jumps Aboard For Mauling - Yahoo! News UK[/url]

Did anyone see this about a rather large boar in the US? [url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1845385.ece]Boy, 11, shoots biggest hog in the backwoods - Times Online[/url]

I have in the past used firecrackers to drive wild animals away

This is all rather scary!! Our house in Umbria is surrounded by woodland and obviously by lots of wild boar. I have seen them occasionally on our land but know they often come close to the house at night (craters in the ground). I run usually early in the morning or at dusk (depending on the weather) in the hills around us. Up to know I have not really worried about coming face to face with a boar, in fact have been rather more frightened of the hunters, most of whom seem well past retiring age and would imagine rather poor eyesight - so always wear something bright.

Is there much evidence that they will attack and harm humans if not provoked? Not sure if I will comfortable going for my run now

On hunting days I advise you to wear what the hunters wear in your area. Here it is a fluourescent orange jacket over their hunting clothes like a hi visibility gilet - that way they will know you are not a boar!

[quote=Nicola D;96582]This is all rather scary!! .......
Is there much evidence that they will attack and harm humans if not provoked? Not sure if I will comfortable going for my run now[/quote]

Sorry to have started a thread which is making you uncomfortable about your run.

I'm no expert, but I haven't come across any evidence at all which suggests that they're dangerous to humans if not provoked - or at least, it they're not in a situation in which they feel provoked, like getting between a mother and her young. Wild boar attacks on people do occasionally happen in such situations, but these attacks are very rare indeed in Europe (thence, when they do occur, are widely reported). And of the few attacks which do occur, many are when people get in the way of boars trying to drive off dogs or horses which appear to be threatening them.

I would have thought that any danger from wild boar was so insignificant that you shouldn't stop your running - you're probably many many times more likely to trip over a tree root and do something nasty to yourself, and I'm sure you don't worry about that.

I'll give you one animal safety tip that is worth worrying about though. Don't leave your barbecue tools hanging around overnight or you'll never know what's been licking them! We were sitting out a few weeks ago and a fox appeared bold as brass a couple of metres away from us and got stuck in with his tongue while four of us were still having dinner. He appeared again the night before last for some chicken-lickin' - but the tools now go straight inside.

Ummm, I rely on the cats to clean the barbecue....their tongues are extremely efficient 'Brillo' pads, and they apply them far more thoroughly than we would ever get around to....and since the fire will be at ?00degrees C (anyway, plenty hot enough to knock off any evil bacteria left by cats) before I apply the next sausage I can't see any harm! (And what are barbecue tools?...asbestos fingers serve me well)!

[quote=Nicola D;96582]Is there much evidence that they will attack and harm humans if not provoked? Not sure if I will comfortable going for my run now[/quote]
Assume you're talking about the boar, not the hunters, attacking you. :bigergrin:

We've had boar [I]very[/I] close to our house. The winter before last, there was one night when a small group was right under the widow above the desk I was working at. What got my attention was one of my cats staring at the door in a meaningful way (If you have cats, you'll know that sort of, "There's something out there I'm not too sure about, so I'll just sit here and keep a close watch on the door," look). When I opened the curtains, four boar were so close to the house I would have been able to touch them if I'd leaned out.

Last winter, we heard noises outside one night and looked out our bedroom window to see more than a dozen boar within a few metres of the house.

On both occasions, as soon as they became aware that there were people inside the house, they scarpered. But I suspect that their eyesight is really not all that great, so you sometimes have to make it very obvious you're around and that you don't like their presence. Thus my suggestion to Bosco that he let "his" boar know that he isn't welcome by tossing a rock in his direction.

One final boar anecdote. Last winter, I was working outside digging holes for new fruit trees one day when a boar hunt was in operation on the hillside below our house. I happened to look up to see a fleeing boar come running up the slope, pass by me about five metres away and continue running on into the forested slope on the other side of our land.

I have to admit to being a bit spooked on each of these occasions, but the fact is that I never observed any behaviour on the part of the boar which suggested I was in any danger. I think it would be an entirely different matter if you happened to come between a sow and her piglets or if you took a male by surprise.

I'm not really afraid of boar, but I do think they are a damned nuisance because of the way they dig up the ground. So I wasn't too sorry to learn that there had been a record number of the things shot last hunting season.

We have a few boar appear round here and also foxes. Apart from the dog going to chase them away, we also use an unloaded air rifle as that makes a noise like a rifle and seems to scare them away just as well.

Just curious -- anybody know how difficult is it to buy an air-rifle in Italy?

Hi Alan,

My husband managed to buy an air rifle (something he had always wanted as "a boy") the day after we bought our house - so no not too difficult - he was lucky that an Italian speaker from Glasgow happened to be standing beside him in the shop to translate the form he had to fill in. If he had wanted a shotgun he would have had to go to Lucca for lessons.

If you need any specific info let me know

What does one shoot with air rifles?, or do you just use them on targets like bows and arrows on a bullseye?.
A

Every time I see the title of this thread - I just cant stop myself from thinking about this song.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSnNbZnCIY4]YouTube - Lena Zavaroni Sings A Silly "Ma He's Making Eyes At Me"[/ame]

Hi Angie,
Well, so far it has the targets have been the crummy plates the previous owners left !
Our neighbours want to use it to scare the squirrells that have taken up residence in their loft Apart from that I can see of no useful purpose in having it except fulfilling my husbands dream of owning one - we also have a Gibson Les Paul guitar- and he can't play that either!
Still, I got the house in Italy - so it's a reasonable compromise! .

get the neighbours to buy your hubby a marshall amp to go with the Les Paul - that should scare most sensible wild life (and probably the neighbours themselves) half to death if he can't play it :-)

I think him playing guitar (total rep Stand By Me and Roll With It) is far more cruel than the air rifle!
As an aside when he got it - both he and my friends husband (ex captain in the army) tried to use it and as they couldn't hit anything decided the "sight was broken" until my 15 year old son came in picked it up and hit the same coke can four time in a row - hubby put it away for ages after that.

And yes of course he HAD to have a Marshall amp when he bought the guitar!

Air rifles, Marshall amps, throwing stones etc. - might send a boar away for a while to a saner environment. But he'll soon come back again when you're not looking. What you need for permanent security is a fence.

Here's the 'agricultural' recipe for a wild boar fence round our way. First you need posts - ideally lengths of old metal pipe (preferably with a few junctions still attached for artistic impact), but failing that some good thick lengths of rusty iron reinforcing rod. The fencing itself should be iron reinforcing mesh (the rigid type, not flexible), attached to the posts with lashings of vine wire. But if you can get hold of some old wire netting that'll do OK on flat bits of land - if you've also got some large diameter rusty piping (old water-main would be fine) to lay along the bottom of the fence to stop the boar getting in underneath. For your gates, a couple of old bed-frames work very well - overlap them in the middle to provide a strong barrier. A good strong wooden pallet will do for a gate which gets only occasional use.

Of course you may not like the aesthetic effect of the above, in which case you can use an electric fence (great for protecting grapes over the summer, but not so good for all-year use), or you can adopt the full bourgeois solution: massive automatic rolling gates, and a nice green metal net fence with each metal post embedded in low reinforced concrete wall which runs the whole length of your perimeter. This costs an arm and a leg (or a bit less plus an enormous amount of labour).