Aggressive and submissive behavioural elements of captive wild boars in feeding situation

Abstract

Nowadays the interest for wild boar hunting especially achieving big and safe hunting bag is growing. It is the reason why many wild boar preserves or hunting gardens were established in the last decades. The density is determined by the interest of the maximum economic profit in most of the gardens regardless of what is optimal for the animals. The high density may cause a social stress, indicated e.g. by the fights, which may cause not only serious negative welfare consequences but decrease in productivity and less economic result consequently. The behaviour of wild boars in hunting gardens is poorly studied. The aim of our study was to describe and determine of the most important aggressive and submissive behavioural elements which may sign the stress level of the animals. The observations were taken in intensive wild boar gardens on feeding places at feeding times. We recorded with a video camera the animals and analyzed their behaviour with Solomon Coder. We described four aggressive (running toward somebody, hit, chasing, bite) and four submissive (head lift, retreat, avoidance, escape) behavioural elements. These elements can be ranked depending on time length and physical contact and show relation with the hierarchy order. We think that based on these elements, we can work out a guide to describe the stress level in wild boar gardens

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