AN open letter to the Forestry Commission on the culling of wild boar in the Forest of Dean.

Before you embark on a major cull of wild boar, I think you should consider the following:

You promised the council, when the boar first came, that you would educate the public on the boar, liaise with the police on poaching, investigate humane control methods and thus keep the boar out of villages.

As far as I can see, you have failed to do all of these things. There has been no progress on telling people not to feed the boar, which brings them into settlements, the police have registered very few cases of poaching in the Forest, though there are many instances of this and the only way you know of controlling boar is to shoot them.

You have not really helped people who have called on you after boar have entered their gardens and land. This has been one of the main complaints of the cull movement.

You have shot the boar in the deep Forest, thus disturbing them and attracting them to settlements. They have also been disturbed by other Forestry Commission activities like tree felling.

You say there are 800-900 boar in the Forest There is absolutely no evidence for this and there could as easily be 200-400 boar. Your thermal imaging is suspect as the cameras may be recording the same group several times over. The number of 535 is, having read the report, in my opinion, suspicious. How you reach 800-900 from this belongs to the realms of fantasy.

You do not concern yourself with what farmers and hunters do outside the Forest. Many boar are shot on farms and this is a form of control.

The number is as high as the Forest shootings, if trincinella figures from the Food Standard Authority are to be believed.

You have been panicked by the views of a few extremists, who do not see the whole picture. I here refer to Hogwatch and some members of West Dean parish council.

Your answer is to cull more boar. Instead of employing extra gunmen, you should implement a radical change of policy.

You need to deal with boar invading settlements humanely, provide some compensation for damaged fences etc and launch a proper education policy for the public on not feeding boar.

Shooting 400 boar is not the answer. I doubt if there are that many to shoot and you may exterminate most boar, in the process.

Your policy has shown no management skills so far and needs to change before you gun down a major tourist attraction.

By the way, boar reproduction is hard to calculate. The sows average one litter of four hoglets a year and many hoglets die of natural causes.

There are also road traffic accidents, poaching and disease to take into account.

Frightened for your jobs in the face of angry Foresters? Then change the policy. Do not kill more boar.

– Joyce Moss.