Please help us bring wild boar to Dundreggan!

As owners of Dundreggan, we have the opportunity to carry out substantial forest restoration work there, so please make a donation to help us raise £15,500 for an exciting project that will bring wild boar to the ancient birchwood on the estate.

Dear Supporter,

The purchase of the Dundreggan Estate on 1st August this year was a tremendous breakthrough for Trees for Life, and was only made possible by the remarkable generosity of our supporters. I’m very grateful for all the donations we received – thank you! As owners of these special 10,000 acres of land in the Highlands, we now have the opportunity to carry out substantial restoration work there, and I’m writing to you today to ask for your support in raising £15,500 for an exciting project, that involves wild boar at Dundreggan!

Like many areas of woodland in the Highlands, the ancient birchwood on Dundreggan has an excessive and disproportionate growth of bracken in it. Although this fern is native to the forest, its fronds are toxic to most animals, so it thrives while other more palatable plants are eaten. In addition, because it reproduces by underground runners called rhizomes, bracken spreads readily, and, unhindered by grazing, it shades out flowering plants on the forest floor and inhibits the regeneration of trees, creating a uniform, dense and at times impenetrable understorey. The natural control for bracken is through the rooting behaviour of wild boar, and the extinction of this mammal in the UK about 400 years ago has contributed to the proliferation of bracken in various parts of the country.

Colin Blyth (left) & Dan Puplett putting up a post in October, to mark the proposed boundary of the wild boar enclosure in the birchwood on Dundreggan.

Wild boar root in the soil, and dig up and eat the rhizomes of bracken. The effectiveness of this was demonstrated by the 3 year Guisachan Wild Boar Project that we were a partner in, on the edge of the Glen Affric National Nature Reserve, and I was very impressed at the difference they made there! Now, we aim to draw on that experience in an exciting and innovative project at Dundreggan, by utilising wild boar to reduce the dominance of bracken. In doing so, we will be restoring one of the missing ecological processes in the forest there, and benefiting many species.

Rooting for the future – a flagship restoration project

This is one of the first projects we will be carrying out at Dundreggan, in the early spring of 2009, but to do so we need to raise £25,500, to cover the fencing costs, to purchase the wild boar, and to pay for feeding and running costs for the first year. We have a grant of £10,000 from a trust we can put towards this, leaving us £15,500 to find, so this is where I am asking for your help.

Whenever I visited the wild boar at Guisachan, I was always touched by how right it felt to see them in their natural forest habitat, in contrast to the lack of large mammals in woodlands throughout the UK today. This, then, is an opportunity to establish a flagship project for our forest restoration work at Dundreggan, and I hope that you will be as inspired about it as I am! Please support us by sending a donation today – further details are below.

Key facts about the Wild Boar Project at Dundreggan:

• We have identified and marked out an area of 13.68 hectares (33.8 acres) in the birchwood where bracken is particularly dense and vigorous. In doing so, we have avoided the main concentration of wood ant nests, to prevent disturbance to that key species in the forest, and also some old ‘granny’ Scots pines, as boar have been known to damage their roots in some situations.
• The boar will not be free-ranging, as they will be confined inside a secure enclosure, consisting of a deer fence and an electric fence, similar to that used at the Guisachan project. We need to apply for a licence to have them there, under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 (although the boar themselves are not dangerous at all).
• By reducing the dominance of bracken in the birchwood, the boar will enable flowering plants such as primroses and dog violets to flourish and spread. Through their rooting behaviour, the boar disturb and expose the soil, and this will create ideal germination conditions for the seeds of trees such as Scots pine and birch – there is no regeneration of these in the woodland at present.
• Volunteers participating in our Conservation Holidays will help with monitoring the effectiveness of the boar in reducing the bracken, and the boar project will also form an important element of the educational experience we will provide for visitors to the estate, including groups of school children.

Join us in rooting for the future of Dundreggan, by sending a donation today!

With your help, boar like this will soon be at home at Dundreggan! Photo by Liz Balharry.

Wild boar are considered to be ‘ecological engineers’, and their services are crucial to bringing the existing birchwood on the estate to a state of ecological health and balance. Please support us in this exciting project, by sending a donation that will literally lay the groundwork for the restoration of the Caledonian Forest at Dundreggan!

To make a donation online to this project, please follow the link below, and thank you in advance for any contribution that you can give – every gift, no matter its size, will help us to reach our target for this project.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Watson Featherstone
Executive Director

PS. It just takes a few moments to respond, but your support will have a long-lasting effect!

Pages about Wild boar on this site

• Wild boar - Species Profile
• Update on the wild boar at Dundreggan - February 2010
• Update on the wild boar at Dundreggan - January 2010
• Wild boar released into enclosure at Dundreggan - November 2009
• Wild Boar arrive at Dundreggan on YouTube
• Wild Boar at Dundreggan Appeal - November 2008
• Video: The Guisachan Wild Boar Project - a short video clip (6.7 mb) about this partner project, situated just outside Glen Affric
• Results from the Guisachan Wild Boar Project - May 2008
• Rooting for Regeneration - Guisachan Wild Boar Project update, November 2006
• Wild boar project takes root(s), literally! - Guisachan Wild Boar Project update, November 2005
• Guisachan Wild Boar Project - May 2004
• Mythology and Folklore of the Wild boar

If you would like to make a donation for a different aspect of our work, please see our Appeals for Funds.

Published: 27 November 2008
Last updated: 25 August 2010