Wild Boars
he five wild boar live in the Eifelpark, the exciting animal park for families, in their own enclosure. The sow (the female) is the boss of this sounder. From the elevated side of the track, guests can watch the wild boar family wallow and burrow. The young boar each year are a special magnet for visitors in the animal park in the Eifel and their crazy antics in the enclosure make the adventure park guests smile. The wild boar belongs to the family of Old World or real pigs of the artiodactyl group. They are among the largest animals that still exist in the wild in Central Europe and are seen but rarely as they are well hidden in the undergrowth. The pigs of today descend from the wild boar.
Appearance
The wild boar has a dense, bristly, black and brown coat. His head is somewhat triangular with a sharp, strong snout. The hunters call the snout ‘Gebrech’ because the pig breaks the ground with it and so churns up the soil surface to look for food there. The large ears are dark and covered with fur, the eyes rather small. The teeth of the wild boar are strong and the canines are particularly large. The male wild boar uses his canines as weapons, the lower canines (tusks) are semi-circular and curved upwards, the upper canines face upwards, too.
Habitat
Two things are particularly important to the wild boar; it has to be able to hide itself and it loves the water. Otherwise, wild boar are easily able to adapt to their surroundings. They live on the banks of lakes,in reed beds, marshes, rice fields and forests and they even colonise tropical coasts or areas at high altitudes.
Nutrition
The wild boar eats almost everything; roots, tubers, tree fruits, fungi, insects, snails, mice, frogs, newts or dead animals. It enjoys digging up its food with its snout or canines.