Two wolves attack a huge wild boar at the door of a house

A video recorded by Paolo Bondioni near Case Santini, a small locality belonging to the municipality of Sambuca Pistoiese (province of Pistoia, Italy), shows one of the most striking predation scenes shared in recent months. The images show how two wolves corner a wild boar practically at the doors of a rural home and keep up the attack for more than a minute.

Although numerous recordings of wolves hunting wild boar in Italy have been shared in recent years, above all footage recorded by camera traps in places favoured by both species, very few show such a prolonged action and at such a short distance from a home.

That circumstance makes these images a particularly striking document, as they show with great clarity a hunting strategy that can normally only be observed through automatic cameras installed in the countryside.

The recording makes it possible to see how both predatorsrepeatedly bite the ears and neck of the suid, a hunting strategy characteristic of the wolf when it faces large and potentially dangerous prey. The wild boar tries to resist while the two canids coordinate their movements to immobilise it.

Why did the attack take place next to an inhabited home?

The wild boar is fighting for its life. The pursuit and harassment by the wild canids have driven it to try to seek refuge in an inhabited area. It reaches the entrance fence of the home, but it could have done so next to buildings, tracks, farms and even inside urban centres, as we have seen on other occasions, among them perhaps the most striking, when a roe deer reached the door of a school and was caught there by wolves.

A team hunting technique

Although the scene is shocking because it takes place next to a home, the behaviour observed matches that described by numerous studies on wolf ecology in the Italian Apennines.

Wild boar are one of the wolf’s main prey species in Tuscany. When dealing with adult specimens, the predators usually avoid the tusks by initially holding the head or ears while another individual tries to reach the neck or throat to reduce the prey’s ability to defend itself.

The capture can last for several minutes, especially if the prey is a large adult. Wild boar are considered one of the most dangerous prey species for the wolf because of their strength and their natural defences.

The wolf, a regular presence in this part of Italy

A study presented in 2016, “A large carnivore in a peri-urban habitat: the gray wolf around Pistoia”, documents that the wolf has become established even in peri-urban areas of Pistoia. The research reports that 42.5% of those surveyed said they had seen or heard wolves, reflecting the species’ regular presence in the province. However, the work focuses on social perception and does not describe attacks on people.

The province of Pistoia periodically records attacks on livestock farms, especially on sheep and goats, as do other mountainous areas of Tuscany. Although many studies have been carried out in neighbouring provinces such as Arezzo, they show a common pattern: damage is concentrated on farms located within the territory of wolf packs.

In February 2025, several Tuscan media outlets reported the presence of wolves even in nurseries located barely two kilometres from the centre of Pistoia, reflecting the increasing frequency of sightings in humanised areas.

Is it common for two wolves to hunt a wild boar together?

When the prey is an animal of considerable size, like the wild boar in the video, a lone wolf does not have as many chances of bringing it down as it does when accompanied by at least one other member of its species. Although a wolf can bring down young or weakened animals on its own, adults pose a considerable risk because of their strength and tusks. For that reason, hunting in pairs or in small groups increases the chances of success and reduces the danger of any of the predators being injured.

Coordination between the wolves allows them to divide roles during the attack. While one tries to distract or immobilise the wild boar by holding it by the head or ears, the other seeks to reach the neck or throat, where it can better control the prey. This strategy has been described in numerous studies on wolf behaviour and explains why the capture of adult wild boar usually lasts several minutes.

Research carried out in different regions of Italy also shows that the wild boar is one of the wolf’s fundamental prey species. An analysis that compiled data from 21 study areas concluded that, on average, the wild boar was the most frequent prey in its diet, with a presence of close to 50%, ahead of the roe deer and well above domestic livestock. The behaviour observed corresponds to a predation strategy that is perfectly well known to biologists who study the wolf in Italy: cooperation between several individuals to bring down strong, resistant and potentially dangerous prey such as an adult wild boar.