Will wild pigs hunt and eat other mammals?

[astro]

I know will pigs are omnivores. I’m wondering if they were hungry enough if they would engage in “hunting” behavior to deliberately stalk and kill (not just find opportunistically) another mammal for food. Do they ever do this?

[Kobal2]

From Wiki :

Wild boar are usually crepuscular, foraging from dusk until dawn but with resting periods during both night and day. They eat almost anything they come across, including grass, nuts, berries, carrion, roots, tubers, refuse, insects, small reptiles. Wild boar are also known to predate on young deer and lambs. This has not been reported in the UK, but is a common problem in Australia.[10]

So, that would be a quick yes.
I can’t say I’ve heard of it myself (even though boars are a very common nuisance here in France), but I do know that boars have a mean temper to them : they usually *charge *rather than flee when startled. So even if it weren’t hunting behaviour, you can be sure individual boars would gore other mammals on occasion, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Carptracker]

Yes.

Tame ones too. Saw a big sow eat a cat that ventured into its pen.

[penultima_thule]

Previous thread on the topic

[astro]

Thanks for the replies. The eating scenarios cited are borderline opportunistic, ie cats in a pen, and eating baby animals they happen upon. Per my OP what I really wanted to know is if wild pigs will actively seek out and *stalk *another animal with the intent of killing and eating it like a wolf or bear or cougar would stalk an animal. In other words would a hog *hunt you *if sufficiently hungry?

[penultima_thule]

Your OP asked about mammals, to which the answer is definitely yes.

Wild pigs and wild dogs are the primary predators of sheep in the Australian rangelands.

If you are talking pigs hunting adult, uninjured humans, that would be highly doubtful.

[astro]

@penultima_thule

Your OP asked about mammals, to which the answer is definitely yes.

Wild pigs and wild dogs are the primary predators of sheep in the Australian rangelands.

If you are talking pigs hunting adult, uninjured humans, that would be highly doubtful.

So a wild hog will attack, kill and eat a full grown sheep? If that’s the case question answered.

[Cicero]

A feral pig killed a guy I knew on Cape York about five years ago. He was living in the bush and the power went out. He went to investigate and didn’t arm himself. He was attacked and killed- whether he was stalked and eaten I have no idea.

[Blake]

@astro

Thanks for the replies. The eating scenarios cited are borderline opportunistic, ie cats in a pen, and eating baby animals they happen upon.

No, definitely not. Pigs don’t just “happen upon” lambs. They actively seek them out by scent. It’s a very deliberate, premeditated and purposeful pursuit of the animals in question.

Per my OP what I really wanted to know is if wild pigs will actively seek out and *stalk *another animal with the intent of killing and eating it like a wolf or bear or cougar would stalk an animal.

You’ll have to define “stalk” in this scenario. They certainly make a last minute rush towards a lamb so that it won’t run away. It’s a little bit difficult to tell whether a hoofed animal is “stalking”. Perhaps you could explain what evidence you would expect tot see if a pig were stalking a a lamb? It’s not like their skeleton will enable them to crouch down like a stalking cat.

@astro

So a wild hog will attack, kill and eat a full grown sheep? If that’s the case question answered.

They will certainly kill and and eat a ewe if it is disabled through injury or disease. They are just not physically or mentally equipped to stalk and kill a healthy ewe. That’s as odd as asking whether a cow might stalk and kill a wolf. Have no doubt that they would do so if they could. They are extremely predatory aniamls. But they just can’t, so they don’t.

In other words would a hog *hunt you *if sufficiently hungry?

If you were injured and unable to defend yourself, no doubt. They have a healthy and very sensible fear of uninjured humans. Humans know that pork tastes good.

@Cicero

A feral pig killed a guy I knew on Cape York about five years ago. He was living in the bush and the power went out. He went to investigate and didn’t arm himself. He was attacked and killed- whether he was stalked and eaten I have no idea.

Cite.

[Cicero]

I’m afraid I didn’t keep a copy of his death notice, not that it mentioned the manner of his death anyway. If you don’t wish to consider it that is fair enough.

[Koxinga]

I think Blake was “citing” your post in response to astro.

[Cicero]

Ah- thanks. I misunderstood.

[Koxinga]

I’ve read and heard stuff indicating that hunting feral hogs is a very dangerous sport.

[Satchmo]

Do an image search on ‘boar spear’, the reason for the crosspiece was too many hunters hurt or killed by the wild pig continuing towards them along the spear. Hunting wild pigs can be very dangerous! They can be hard to kill.

[Bridget_Burke]

From Pablo Neruda’s Eulogy for his good friend, Federico Garcia Lorca:

One night in a village of Extremadura, unable to sleep, he got up when dawn broke. The harsh Extramenan landscape was still filled with mist. Federico sat down beside some overturned statues to watch the sun grow. They were marble figures from the seventeenth century; and the place was the entrance to a feudal manor, totally abandoned like so many of the holdings of the great Spanish lords.

Federico was watching the crushed statues, kindled to whiteness by the young sun, when a little lamb that had strayed from its fold began to graze beside him. Suddenly five or six black pigs crossed the road, threw themselves on the lamb, and, in a few minutes, before his surprise and terror, tore it to pieces and devoured it. Federico, prey to an indescribable fear, motionless from horror, watched the black pigs kill and devour the lamb among the fallen statues, in that lonely dawn.

This happened not long before Garcia Lorca’s murder. Did it really happen? Well, Pablo & Federico were both poets.