A gourmet wild boar feeds on an eel it has just caught

Because the suid stops right in front of the trail camera, we can examine what it is devouring. This species’ predatory nature extends to a wide range of prey, including those living beneath the surface of rivers and stagnant waters.

The wild boar as a fish predator

The wild boar’s predatory behaviour towards fish such as the eel shown in the video has been studied by specialists in several parts of the world. Among them, the studies that come closest to documenting the wild boar as a fish predator in environments where the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) might be found are those conducted in the French Camargue and the Guadalquivir Delta.

The first, led by Dardaillon (1987), was based on 149 stomach contents from wild boar in the Camargue and found fish remains in 12.7% of the stomachs, accounting for 3% of the diet. The phenomenon took on particular significance during periods of drought: as wetlands and channels began to dry out, fish became concentrated in small bodies of stagnant water or residual pools, making them an easily accessible resource for wild boar. During a fish die-off recorded in the winter of 1981–1982, fish came to represent 11.1% of stomach contents. The author also notes that wild boar visited these places and actively caught fish trapped in the drying waters.

A similar pattern appears in the literature on the Guadalquivir Delta, where Garzón et al. (1980) also documented wild boar consuming fish and were later cited by Dardaillon as another example of this behaviour in a large Mediterranean wetland. This finding is particularly interesting in relation to the European eel, a species that uses rivers, channels, marshes and stagnant areas during its continental phase, although neither of these studies identifies the fish consumed as Anguilla anguilla. What they do show is that when drying concentrates fish in pools, channels or isolated bodies of water, wild boar can actively exploit this resource. As a result, this video, which provides evidence of an eel being preyed upon, constitutes a highly valuable record.