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Wild Boar Used Smaller Areas Where Estimated Density Was Higher in Sweden

Wild boar sounder with sow and piglets
Research · Ecology

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) in Sweden used smaller areas over two-week periods where estimated population density was higher. A study combining long-term GPS tracking with landscape and hunting data also found that local habitat and hunting conditions influenced movement at different spatial scales.

The researchers analysed GPS data from 99 adult wild boar tracked between 2004 and 2021, including 16 males and 83 females. They estimated space use in 14-day periods and compared it with forest, open land, farmland, estimated wild boar density and whether hunting with dogs was permitted. Hunting-bag statistics were used as an indirect indicator of local density: areas with more wild boar shot were treated as likely to have higher local density.

Two-week space use became smaller as estimated density increased and where the local landscape contained more forest or open land. Agricultural land did not show a clear direct local effect, but more farmland in neighbouring areas was associated with smaller space use. Males generally used larger areas than females.

Movement between consecutive GPS positions revealed additional responses at a finer scale. Wild boar consistently selected forest over more open habitats, and movement changed with both density and hunting conditions. The dog-allowed hunting season did not clearly change the overall size of the two-week area used, but was associated with changes in short-term movement, particularly through interactions with local density. The authors conclude that broad patterns of space use emerge from movement decisions responding to habitat, population density and human disturbance at different scales.

Sources and image credit

  1. Kim, H., Widgren, S., Johansson, R., Kjellander, P., Månsson, J., Malmsten, J., Thurfjell, H., & Rosendal, T. (2026). Multi-scale analysis of spatial drivers in wild boar space use at a biweekly scale across landscape patterns and step selection. Movement Ecology, 14, 61. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-026-00696-0Primary peer-reviewed open-access research article published 26 August 2026. GPS data from 99 adult wild boar in Sweden (16 males, 83 females) were analysed at biweekly space-use and step-selection scales. Higher estimated density was associated with smaller biweekly space use; forest and open-land proportions also showed local contraction effects. Males used larger areas than females, while density and hunting conditions affected fine-scale movement. Hunting-bag statistics served as a proxy for local density.

Image: Wild boar sounder with a sow, piglets and a female from the previous year's offspring in Chemnitz, Germany, photographed on 29 April 2007. Photo: Jörg Hempel. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Representative image; not animals from the Swedish study. · CC BY-SA 2.0 DE · Source

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