What it is
The wild boar is an adaptable omnivorous pig, ancestor of most domestic pigs. IUCN lists it as Least Concern. It roots soil, eats crops, and lives from desert fringe to forest.
Range
Native to Eurasia and North Africa. Exterminated in Britain and parts of Scandinavia, then re-established. Introduced and invasive in the Americas, Australia, and many islands.
What happened
For thousands of years people hunted boar and turned forest into fields. In some regions that erased them. In the last century milder winters, maize, and fewer wolves let European numbers surge. Elsewhere releases for hunting created feral problems. Survival here is not scarcity — it is a rearranged ecology.
When / status
Still here; locally extinct, then over-abundant, depending on the landscape people built.
Human role
We reduced it, reintroduced it, and then fed its recovery with crops and empty predator niches.
Sources
IUCN Red List (Sus scrofa, Least Concern); European population-trend reviews.