Madam,

Regarding your front page article (22 June) headlined ‘Woman in shock at wild boar encounter’.

On what grounds did Cllr Peter Davies make the assertion that there is a danger to walkers and residents when there are no accounts I can find of anyone being injured by wild boar in the UK; and if there are, they must be minimal in comparison to the danger posed to walkers and residents by cows, horses or dogs, and barbed wire or ticks or mosquitoes for that matter.

Wild boar only come close to being dangerous when protecting their young, but this applies to most species including humans. So why scare-monger? Why raise anxieties?

The most common complaint against the boar is that they turn over turfs, be it the forest floor or your lawn; but in the grand scheme of things this is hardly cause for alarming the public.

Why not celebrate the return of a once-native species to a part of the world where places and rivers here still bare its name - ‘Twrch’.

People who come to Wales want to experience wild nature so why not make it part of tourism if we have to interact with the boar at all?

The risk of injury to humans from interaction with animals cannot be reduced to zero; but in the case of the wild boar you’ll have to admit it is already very low without any safety measures put in place other than advice from informed authorities.

The quoted statement could only cause anxiety to people and possibly attract trophy hunting gun owners, who pose a far greater risk to the public; and in that case it could be implied the issuer of the statement has some responsibility to the outcome.

Yours etc, Alun Davies, Cwmann, Lampeter.

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