OVER the past few weeks hundreds of people, both local and from further a field, have been absolutely enthralled by the appearance of friendly families of wild boar in at least two different Forest locations during daylight hours.

These particular animals show no sign of aggression whatsoever and seem perfectly happy to be photographed by the many people who have stopped to admire them which perhaps helps to dispel some of the absolute nonsense and negative propaganda written about these fascinating and gentle creatures since the Forest was first blessed with their reintroduction several years ago.

The question now seems to be: "Will they be allowed to continue to bring such pleasure to so many people as well as attracting much-needed tourists to the area or will the Forestry Commission find some lame excuse to shoot them?"

Sadly, with so many people in positions of influence from local politicians down to some of the forest rangers themselves whose main source of enjoyment seems to be the hunting down and killing of defenseless animals, I do not hold out a great deal of hope. Besides, these are easy targets to add to their cull statistics based purely on guesswork which seems hell bent on destroying what is already a fragile population.

A concerned reader