Wild boar populations are expanding across Europe and parts of North America, bringing them into increasing conflict with agriculture and urban areas. Welfare considerations span both wild living conditions and hunting practices.
Wild boar welfare encompasses both the quality of their wild lives and the manner of their death through hunting or culling. Wild boar experience genuine social bonds and the loss of family members in hunts causes behavioral disruption in surviving group members. Hunting methods that minimize wounding and ensure rapid death — stalking by experienced hunters with accurate shots — cause less welfare harm than drive hunts that may wound multiple animals that are not immediately retrieved. Urban wild boar management that uses deterrence rather than lethal control where feasible reduces welfare harm while addressing human conflict. Acknowledging wild boar intelligence and sociality should inform management approaches.