All hogs are excellent swimmers, but we hardly ever see them swimming in deep water like this.
We'd caught this one and after we turned him loose he took the shortest escape route.
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| Wild
boar adore the water. Hogs
don't sweat, so it cools them as well
as protects them from insects and parasites. A hog also will pack mud on his skin to treat or prevent sunburn.
After wallowing, a hog follows it up with a vigorous scrub, usually
against a tree. They like novelty though, and anything new can expect to get a rubdown.
Hogs can get so engrossed in their scratching that they don't hear you and, rarely, you could happen on one
and startle him. And a startled hog is a loose cannon you don't want to be around.
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| He's poked his snout under the water, so he must be getting something edible from the pond bottom...animal or vegetable?
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It's dangerous to startle a wild boar and it can be easy to do when he's napping sleepily in his hole.
Tucked deeply in his wallow hole, this one's easy to miss.
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This hog's grabbing something from the pond bottom. We watched him plunge his face into the water, up to his ears, for long stretches of time.
Hogs share a trait with most hoofed animals--they
urinate and defecate in their wallow holes and water holes.
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Porky here was alerted to my approach, popped his head up, promptly cancelled his wallow and rocketed off in the other direction.
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