Groundbreakers

The Return of Britain’s Wild Boar – BES MARSH ECOLOGY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION

Groundbreakers

The Return of Britain’s Wild Boar – BES MARSH ECOLOGY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION

Chantal Lyons (Author)

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Description

'A charming, compulsively readable tribute to an unlikely keystone species.' BEN GOLDFARB

After centuries of absence, wild boar are back in Britain. What does this mean for us – and them?

Big, messy and mysterious – crossing paths with a wild boar can conjure fear and joy in equal measure. Driven to extinction seven hundred years ago, a combination of the species' own tenacity and illegal releases from the 1980s has seen several populations of this beast of myth begin to roam English and Scottish woods once more.

With growing worry over the impacts on both people and the countryside, the boar's right to exist in Britain has been heavily debated. Their habitat-regenerating actions benefit a host of other wildlife, yet unlike beavers, these ecosystem engineers remain unloved by many. Why is there no clamour to reintroduce them across the land? And, with the few boar in England threatened by poaching and culling, why are we not doing more to prevent their re-extinction?

In Groundbreakers, Chantal Lyons moves to the boar's stronghold of the Forest of Dean to get up close and personal with this complex, intelligent and quirky species, and she meets with people across Britain and beyond who celebrate their presence – or want them gone. From Toulouse and Barcelona where they are growing in number and boldness, to the woods of Kent and Sussex where they are fading away again, to Inverness-shire where rewilders welcome them, join Chantal on a journey of discovery as she reveals what it might take for us to coexist with wild boar.

Introduction

PART ONE: PAST AND PRESENT
Chapter 1: An End and a Beginning
Chapter 2: A Wild Boar Chase
Chapter 3: Guys, Dolls and Humbugs
Chapter 4: Monstrous Appetites
Chapter 5: Re-Pigging
Chapter 6: This Is Our Land
Chapter 7: The Boar People (Part I)
Chapter 9: Mad About the Boar
Chapter 8: The Boar People (Part II)
Chapter 10: To Kill a Boar

PART TWO: FUTURES
Chapter 11: A Bamboche of Boar
Chapter 12: Mind-Forged Fences
Chapter 13: Losing Them Again
Chapter 14: The Risks of Being Alive

Epilogue

Product details

Published	Apr 16 2024
Format	Hardback
Edition	1st
Extent	288
ISBN	9781399401630
Imprint	Bloomsbury Wildlife
Dimensions	9 x 5 inches
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Chantal Lyons

Chantal Lyons is a naturalist and writer, and scie…

Deeply researched and beautifully written.

Michael Odell, The Times
Groundbreakers is rich with scientific and social understanding, sharp evocations of natural places and a great deal of self-knowledge. In its focus, depth, clarity and range of enquiry, it is one of the most notable works of recent nature writing.

Helen Macdonald, New Statesman
Magnificent. An elegant, enlivening and profoundly on-point portrait of a forgotten icon, and our struggle to reconcile ourselves to its return. Read cover to cover with absolute relish.

Amy-Jane Beer
Written with great passion and insight, Groundbreakers examines the joys and challenges that come with living alongside resurgent Wild Boar ... A timely and vital addition to the conservation writing canon.

Lee Schofield, author of Wild Fell
I've had the privilege of reading this book in advance, and I can tell you it's a gem.

Eoghan Daltun
The wild boar is lucky to have Lyons.

Adam Weymouth, The Sunday Times