CONTROL of wild boar in the Dean should focus on the damage caused rather than numbers, the Forest's Deputy Surveyor has said.

But getting the information needed to do that has been hampered by the cost of research, said Kevin Stannard.

He said: "It shouldn't be a numbers game because with a numbers game you have immense difficulty in estimating the population and nobody agrees with you.

The numbers game is the wrong way, it has got to be about impact but we don't have that knowledge.

"We have commissioned the University of Worcester to look at road safety, public safety and other social impacts.

"We did tender for a piece of research to look at damage levels in the community but none of the research organisations returned a tender as we indicated we had a maximum of £15,000 to do that work but they said it would be significantly more.

"We are looking for extra resources to fund research into damage in the community."

Mr Stannard was speaking during a walk around Parkhill Inclosure near Parkend looking at evidence of the boar. It was part of a day of discussions about feral wild boar in the Forest.

He also revealed that Forestry Commission staff were being targeted for "psychological intimidation" by a group claiming it will sabotage a cull of boar.

Mr Stannard said: "The threat is of physical attacks against our staff and physical attacks against our property.

"At the moment it is only a threat. We are taking security measures and we are liaising with police at national as well as at local level."

Forest wildlife manager Ian Harvey said the aim was for boar control to become a routine part of operations.

He said: "We are trying to move away from the confrontational nature of the subject. What we want is for it to become a normal part of Forest operations."

District councillor Terry Hale (Con, Newland and St Briavels) asked why the Commission had not taken action when 26 boar were released at Staunton.

Mr Harvey said: "At that time there was no lead policy and although they had been dumped they were still somebody's property.

"If we'd taken action it could have been considered illegal."