Between their medieval extinction and the 1980s, when wild boar farming began, only a handful of captive wild boar, imported from the continent, were present in Britain. Occasional escapes of wild boar from wildlife parks have occurred as early as the 1970s, but since the early 1990s significant wild-boar populations have re-established themselves after escapes from farms; the numbers of wild boar have increased significantly over recent years.
FOREST OF DEAN WILD BOAR CULL
Campaigners in Forest of Dean claim the Forestry Commission wants to kill up to 500 of the animals using four trained marksmen, after numbers allegedly leaped from 535 to 819 in just one year.