The first comprehensive assessment distinguished 16 subspecies, clustered into four groupings based on geographical and morphological criteria: Western, Eastern, Indian and Indonesian ‘races’, the first one occurring in Europe (Groves 1981). Later, Genov (1999) reviewed the variation in cranial morphology and confirmed the Wild Boar as a single polytypic species. According to Groves (2007), four different subspecies, showing morphological and karyological differences, are present in Europe: S. s. scrofa Linnaeus, 1758 – western subspecies (from Iberia to Belarus) with a body size gradient from south (smaller) to north (bigger); S. s. attila Thomas, 1912 – eastern large-sized subspecies occurring from central Belarus and the Carpathians to western Russia; S. s. meridionalis Major, 1882 – a small-sized subspecies, endemic to the islands of Sardinia and Corsica; S. s. lybicus Gray, 1868 – a subspecies occurring in the Balkans and in the Near East. In southern Iberia, a further subspecies was recognized, S. s. baeticus Thomas, 1912 (Keuling et al. 2018). However, the phylogeographic studies conducted in the last two decades did not confirm this partition and revealed a weak genetic structure in mainland Europe. Nonetheless, a previously proposed endemic subspecies of the Italian peninsula - S. s. majori De Beaux and Festa, 1927 – has recently received some support from genomic data (Scandura et al. 2022a).

European regional assessment: Least Concern (LC)
EU 27 regional assessment: Least Concern (LC)

In Europe, the overall population and distribution range of this species are increasing rapidly. The number of Wild Boars harvested annually has grown steadily in almost all countries over the last half-century (Massei et al. 2015). The species shows high tolerance to habitat disturbance and plasticity, enabling colonisation of a wide variety of habitat types, including urban and protected areas. The only threats are represented by harvesting and diseases. African Swine Fever has locally reduced, even severely, the species densities in some regions of Eastern Europe, without affecting the global or European picture and signs of population recovery are evident. On the contrary, hunting has often proved insufficient in reducing both population size and damages caused by the species. Therefore, the Wild Boar is listed as Least Concern at the European and EU 27 level.

In the European region, the Wild Boar is widespread across the continent, apart from the northernmost regions of Fennoscandia and European Russia, and several Mediterranean islands. It disappeared from the British Isles and Scandinavia in the 17^th century, but animals (mostly hybrids with domestic pigs) escaped from captivity have established wild populations in Sweden, Great Britain and Ireland (Lemel et al. 2003, Frantz et al. 2012, McDevitt et al. 2013). Historical wild boar populations occur in the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, where records are available since Neolithic times, whereas the population in Sicily was introduced more recently (Scandura et al. 2022b). In Cyprus, the species, after an illegal reintroduction in 1994, has been extinct since 2004 (Hadjisterkotis and Heise-Pavlov 2006).

The natural range of the Wild Boar extends from western Europe and North Africa eastwards through the Middle East, central and south-east Asia, reaching its south-eastern limit at the Greater Sunda Islands. Out of this range, it occurs with introduced (often invasive) populations on all other continents except Antarctica.

Wild Boar populations in Europe increased markedly after the Second World War (Massei et al. 2015). This increase in population numbers is accompanied by geographical northward expansion (Apollonio et al. 2010). The hunting bag in Europe (including the European part of Russia) ranged from 3,040,000 to 3,710,000 in the period 2016/17 to 2020/21 (maximum recorded in 2019/2020), evidencing a steadily increasing trend (source: Enetwild) with marked fluctuations between years.

Population dynamics of Wild Boar are driven by both natural and anthropogenic factors. The most important natural drivers include mast of deciduous trees, winter severity, and predation. Hunting is the main cause of Wild Boar mortality across Europe. Ever-increasing annual hunting bags (+150% from 1992 to 2012, + 40% from 2015/2016 to 2020/21) and over three million Wild Boars annually harvested in Europe suggest that hunting appears to be insufficient in limiting Wild Boar populations, which are expected to continue to grow (Massei et al. 2015, Vetter et al. 2015, EFSA 2021).

The species is highly flexible, resulting in a wide range of habitats, that increasingly include urban environments (Cahill et al. 2012, Stillfried et al. 2017). However, it prefers well-developed broadleaved forests, but may also be found in more open habitats such as steppe, Mediterranean shrubland, and farmland, so long as there is water and tree cover nearby (Scandura et al. 2022b). Seasonality influences habitat use, both in terms of use of resources (Keuling et al. 2009) and risk avoidance during the hunting season (Saïd et al. 2012).

It has an omnivorous diet, that varies according to local and seasonal food availability. Plant matter constitutes the staple of the diet (e.g., beech mast, acorns, green plants, tubers) and includes agricultural crops when available (Schley and Roper 2003). Animal material is also frequently consumed, although it usually represents a small portion of the diet (about 3% of stomach content), and mostly includes invertebrates, small mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds and can either be acquired by scavenging or predation, depending on the size (Schley and Roper 2003).

There are no major threats to the species, which shows positive trends despite intensive hunting pressure. It is considered a pest in a large part of its range. Diseases and especially the African Swine Fever can threaten local populations, but quite often the result is only a decline in the local density, which can recover after a few years. Tuberculosis may also be an issue in some areas (Barasona et al. 2015), especially in managed populations, although it is not lethal to the animals.

The Wild Boar is hunted for sport and for its meat.

It occurs in a large number of protected areas across its range, and it is one of the most abundant and widespread ungulate species in Europe. Even where local numbers have declined due to African swine fever, they are expected to recover after the end of the outbreak. The main aspect of concern in Europe is the occurrence of anthropogenic hybridization with the domestic pig that might result in a loss of adaptive potential or to unpredictable effects on fitness-related traits. No specific actions targeted to the conservation of the species are recommended in Europe, whilst conservation actions to mitigate the impact of the Wild Boar on other less common species are advisable.