Trees protection from wild boar

Hi everyone,
We are planting a Food Forest in South West of France but we have deers and wild boars in the area. We try to avoid fencing the all Food Forest to not cut animal corridors but we have to protect the young trees. Do you have any ideas how to protect young trees from wild boars ?
Thanks for your help.

I am lucky where I have not had to deal with wild boars. My usual American minded response would be to consider hunting them but I understand that other countries such as France are not as liberal with their firearms such as the USA.

I wonder if Holzer's bone sauce might work as a repellent? - https://permies.com/t/1805/Sepp-Holzer-recipe-animals-trees

How many tree's would we be talking about that would need protection at one time?

I would ask a Basque farmer in the region, where they have been raising pigs with cork oak, chestnut and other trees for millennia. I would hate to have my great pyrenees have a serious run in with a wild boar, but he seems to handle large black bears just fine, as they run away or climb a tree. The dog is fenced inside an acre of our zone 1-3, and he keeps deer and bear out. I imagine these dogs coevolved with the Basque pig-silviculture practices, but boar still are nothing to mess with.  

When I worked trail crew in Pinnacles National Monument, we had to maintain over 40mi of pig fence to protect the endangered plants inside the boundary. When some wild boar got in, they had to be shot by park police, and I was told it often took more than one bullet to the head. One 400lb boar apparently flipped over a small SUV near the Monument and when it was finally hunted down it had many bullets lodged in it from previous incursions with hunters. A marine vet I worked with said having a boar charging him as he put several rifle rounds in its head and torso, only to have it slide to a stop at his feet, was scarier than anything he saw in Iraq. The lead they carry in their bodies from this made them deadly carcasses for condors, and often unsafe for human consumption.

They are also very smart and males will give themselves up selflessly to save their young. A live trapped male was once penned in with a pregnant female inside the Monument, while waiting for a park ranger to get back on duty to come euthanize them. He leaned against a 6ft cyclone fence to allow the sow to climb on his back and escape. It was caught on the game camera.

I have heard mixed reports on Sepp’s bone sauce and pigs. The smell
of death it produces seems to be most effective on herbivores. Pigs, being omnivores, may smell it as a potential food sources. Maybe it works better with pig bones?

I am very thankful we do not have them this far north in California. I would take black bears and a few wolves over wild boar, any day. Best of luck!

I dont know the laws in France, but trapping them is a lot more effective than hunting. Hunting will just scatter them and turn them nocturnal. The general idea with trapping them is to build a baited fenced circle, maybe 10-20' in diameter, with a door that is tripped by a pig, from the back of the fenced area to make sure it wont get out. The more high-tech version is to use a trail cam or similar to watch the cage, that way you can see when all the pigs are in, and close the door remotely from your cell phone.

Then you can do what you wish with the pigs, firearms or otherwise.

I was living off grid and trying to grow food without fencing for a couple of years.  After accumulating tons of green waste, creating compost piles, and burying woody materials under soil - it didn't take long for the resident family of wild pigs to frequent the earthworm filled  rich soil and decomposing logs.  My property was backed up right against a forest reserve...  I couldn't afford the fence. The pigs became daily and nightly visitors. Sometimes it would be close to a dozen of them. They started uprooting small trees and knocking over 20 gal pots in the nursery area.  Growing anything in the ground turned out to be hopeless.

Then I did some work for a friend who has a cow sanctuary with over 100 cows.  The only thing he uses to keep his cows in is a single strand electrical line held up by flimsy moveable fiberglass posts. It is so inexpensive that he is able to set up multiple systems on many different large acreage properties, which he doesn't even own.  If there is ever an issue with land owners he can pack up and move to another property relatively easily.  

So, I was inspired, and decided to get a small solar panel and battery with a charge unit, installed them into a box with the solar panel functioning as a lid. I put in some grounding rods, and ran a single line attached to the fiberglass posts around the perimeter of my growing area, which was maybe about an acre in size.  The day the line was installed and activated I actually trapped some pigs inside!  For the next week after the install I would occasionally hear the squeal of a pig after it hit the line.  Then the squeals were less and less frequent as they seemed to learn not to come to that area, although every few weeks or so I would hear another one  I never had pig damage within the boundary of that line ever again while living on that property. Not even once. And this was after months of almost daily visits. It was one of the best investments i've ever made.  

It not full proof, and i'm sure that it can really depend on the place and property, but its something to definitely consider and look into.  Its not a huge investment, its moveable, and it can be used in combination with other methods.  

Attaching some photos I was able to find below for some of the system components.

Another friend of mine also has a small farm without fencing, and he doesn't even use electrical lines.  He gets pigs on his property all the time, but somehow they don't seem to damage everything. He is still able to get away with growing trees, although some do get lost from time to time.  His solution is having dogs, and putting up a pretty basic pig trap.  He uses the pigs to feed himself, his dogs, and his community.  So, that's another approach.  Here is what his trap looks like. These are very common in Hawai'i.  



One thing Im really interested in now when it comes to trapping, is the "Pig Brig."  Similar to a pig corral. Theres a bunch of youtube videos about this method that you can explore.  Ill attach a random one here.  

Are the pigs indigenous to the area, or were they released into the area at some point by humans?

If they are there thru a natural process of nature, then just what you do about them may vary.
If they were introduced, I would tend towards much sterner measures.

Estelle Clotet wrote: We try to avoid fencing the all Food Forest to not cut animal corridors but we have to protect the young trees. Do you have any ideas how to protect young trees from wild boars ?

What kind of time frame are you thinking of? Have you considered fencing part of the area with some version of temporary fencing which after the trees are large enough, can be moved to a new area and start trees there.

In my ecosystem, it's possible to see at least some of the corridors the deer use. I wouldn't worry about blocking a few for a period, but I agree the animals need their "roads" too!

Electric fencing requires you to keep vegetation around it under control so it doesn't short out. If you can manage that, it would likely be the quickest approach. However, in places, we've used solid fencing with electric fencing on the outside, as the solid fencing will control for rabbits which also tend to injure small trees.