{"id":108649,"date":"2025-09-02T07:48:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108649\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T07:48:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:48:06","slug":"scotlands-wild-boar-numbers-to-rise-60-in-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108649\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland’s wild boar numbers to rise 60% in 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wild boar numbers across Scotland are set to rise significantly over the next 50 years, according to a new report. <\/p>\n

Researchers said numbers are expected to rise from 1,472 today to about 2,400 by 2075 – an increase of more than 60%. <\/p>\n

Their modelling also shows that the animals will explore an additional 131 sq km (50 sq miles) each year. <\/p>\n

Wild boar were once extinct in the UK but began to re-establish themselves in the 1970s and can now be found in the west Highlands and Dumfries and Galloway. <\/p>\n

Less well known populations of wild boar can also be found across Perthshire, north Stirling, Moray and Aberdeenshire. <\/p>\n

They likely returned to the wild as a result of accidental escapes and illegal introductions. <\/p>\n

The research was carried out by the James Hutton environmental research institute, King’s College London and the Zoological Society of London. <\/p>\n

Their report, published in the journal Science Direct,<\/a> is expected to help inform the way the population is managed in the future. <\/p>\n

Wild boar can help ecosystems by rooting through soil, and can support communities through tourism and hunting. <\/p>\n

But they can also cause issues such as disease transmission, injury to pets, loss of crops, and damage to land and gardens.<\/p>\n

To understand how Scotland’s boar population might change, the researchers’ modelling considered boar behaviour, land cover and environmental variability.<\/p>\n

They say their study is the first to provide such a detailed simulation of wild boar dynamics across Scotland.<\/p>\n

They believe it could be used to support potential future compensation schemes for those who have been affected by wild boar, or the targeted culling of the animals.<\/p>\n

PhD student Connor Lovell, who carried out the modelling, said: “With wild boar back in Scotland, this model is a key step to understand where boar could go, how big their populations could be, and where they could impact ecosystems and local communities.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wild boar numbers across Scotland are set to rise significantly over the next 50 years, according to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-108649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}