Marcassins

[Gardian]

Where we live is pretty rural.

Mrs G and I went off today to go to the market and joined the ‘main’ road at the bottom of our small estate. It’s a quiet-ish road.

We’d gone 400m or so and I saw what I thought were some birds scurrying around on the road 100m ahead. Got closer and realised that it was a group of about 6-8 marcassins (wild boar piglets). They were running (if that’s what piglets do) in the middle of the road.

By now, I was 10m away and the only thing I could was to sound my horn. As a group, they veered off sideways into the undergrowth. Size-wise, they were no more than 16cms long - really quite small.

Sanglier are prolific around here, but it would be unusual for young to be separated from their mother. Had she been ‘got’ by the chasse or injured in some way? Whatever, unless this was an errant youngster group temporarily separated from Mum, they almost certainly won’t survive very long. Too many predators.

No squashed marcassins on the road on the way back, so OK for the moment.

[Catalpa]

That's tiny. Perhaps Mama Boar didn't recover well from the birth.

Is hunting still taking place in your departement? Post end of Feb, we* still have a few specially licenced hunts in local forests for sanglier control purposes but they're rare. Entirely possible that the youngsters got separated from their family group by some other form of disturbance, though - farm vehicles, groups of walkers, dogs, etc.

* though I accept the Gard area is a different country compared to rural Normandie.

[anotherbanana]

Pity you couldnt have caught one and roasted it on a spit. Delicious!

[Gardian]

The local Chasse had their final outing of the season on Weds 31st.

I googled ‘marcassin’ before posting this, just to make sure that I’d got the spelling right. Nothing about the creatures - just loads of recipes !

[anotherbanana]

Try this on, Gardian:

https://lemagdesanimaux.ouest-france.fr/dossier-86-sanglier-laie-marcassin.html