VIDEO shows wild boar piglets and their mum happily strolling by the side of a busy road – near to where a pensioner was recently charged by a wild boar.
The cute clip shows the seven piglets and their considerably larger mother trotting on a grassy bank in Brentwood, Staffordshire, on Tuesday April 16.
But the adult boar in the video is also the prime suspect in an incident involving a 72-year-old man who reported being chased in a residential area of the town the previous weekend.
Locals were warned to avoid any interaction with the boars, whose presence in the area is a mystery.
The clip of the sighting was posted to local resident Melanie Pratt’s Facebook shortly after they were spotted.
It was uploaded with the caption: “Sister just got more than she bargained for. Wild boar.”
The footage starts with the boar and the piglets walking close together across the road and on to the grass.
As the animals briefly check out the area, a witness in the car can be heard describing the sight as “unbelievable”.
The car’s passenger window is opened as the car moves forward slightly which appears to shift the boar on and they all begin to walk past the car.
The wild boar can be heard grunting as it smells the grass and the piglets are heard squealing as they trot behind.
As it walks by, the scruffy animal takes a glance at the car before grunting its way further along the path.
Reacting to the video, Ellie Rawlinson said: “Never seen wild boar ever. Lots of deer, fox, badger, birds of prey, all kinds of birds, rats, rabbits and the common idiot! But not boar!!”
Amy Keeling commented: “I hope it is left alone and people don’t go after it if it really is wild. If not, hopefully it can be relocated back home!”
Dale Preece-Kelly suggested: “They’ve been reintroduced. They help to keep the heathlands in a good way, like the deer.”
Staffordshire County Council were forced to issue a warning to residents in the area on Sunday April 14 after 72-year-old Graham Roe reported being charged at.
He told a local newspaper: “While I was looking at the piglets a sow appeared out of the trees from about 50 yards away and basically charged us.
“It only stopped about 15ft in front of us when it ran into a fence.
“Next year there will be five or six more of them, it’s quite concerning really, they’re going to increase in number.
“I was shaking quite badly.”
A council spokeswoman said: “We have recently been made aware of the presence of one or two wild boar in the area, but do not know how they got there.”
“We will be keeping an eye out for them but as boars may be aggressive if they are with their young, we would suggest if someone does see one they err on the side of caution and do not approach it.”
Wild boar were made extinct in Britain over 400 years ago. They were reintroduced by farmers in the 1990s which resulted in numbers of them escaping or being dumped in illegal areas.
This has resulted in boars repopulating and appearing in forests and other woodland around the UK, but mainly in areas such as the Forest of Dean and Devon.
Last November, animal rights groups strongly criticised plans by the National Trust to cull wild boar on one of its most renowned estates.
Plans to cull boar in Stourhead, Wiltshire were described as “misguided and immoral” by groups such as Animal Aid and Born Free.
