Police in Caithness are searching for the owners of a pig that had been running loose in the area.
The captured animal is believed to be a wild boar-domestic pig hybrid. Some social media users have speculated that it might belong to Scotland’s population of free-roaming feral pigs.
These feral pigs, which number in the low thousands, are primarily found in parts of the Highlands and Dumfries and Galloway. According to Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), the population includes animals that escaped from farms or were illegally released into the wild. These pigs are known to damage farmland and forestry, prompting ongoing management efforts. Since April, FLS rangers have culled 46 feral pigs.
Wild boars, native to Scotland, were hunted to extinction about 700 years ago. However, over the last decade, populations of free-roaming pigs, including hybrids, have reestablished themselves in some regions.
Police Scotland issued an appeal for help identifying the pig’s owner. They stated, “We are urgently trying to trace the owner of a wild boar cross domestic pig that has been captured after being on the run loose in Caithness recently. If this is your boar, please call us on 101 quoting incident ref 1337 of Thursday 5 December 2024.”
NatureScot, Scotland’s nature agency, describes these animals as feral pigs, a mix of wild boar and domestic pigs resulting from interbreeding. While the pigs are part of Scotland’s natural landscape, their presence poses challenges for land management and agriculture.