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Presentation short abstract

This paper examines how wild boar/feral pigs (WBFPs) are constructed as unbelonging in Scotland. Drawing on ethnographic research, it shows how extinction of experience, storytelling and policy shape coexistence debates and construct WBFPs as out-of-place, dangerous and unruly vermin.

Presentation long abstract

A growing nature recovery agenda in Scotland is creating new ecologies through species reintroductions, placing increased pressures on people to coexist with animals for which there are no cultural, institutional, or living memories. One such species is wild boar, officially termed feral pigs and hereafter WBFPs to acknowledge debates over their identity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Scottish Highlands, this paper examines emerging interpretations of WBFP coexistence and the factors shaping them across local and national discourses. Locally, three discourses—ferality, wildness, and controlled decontrolling—emerged, each proposing distinct pathways to coexistence. These were shaped by the unsanctioned nature of WBFPs’ release, the extinction of experience, tensions over rewilding, the Scottish Government’s non-interventionist approach, limited scientific knowledge, storytelling, and media sensationalism. We focus on two cross-cutting themes—belonging and storytelling—to understand how these factors co-produce coexistence discourses. WBFPs were predominantly positioned as out of place, dangerous, and unruly. This perception of unbelonging was largely shaped by the extinction of experience: the absence of cultural practices, management traditions, and institutional frameworks has left WBFPs without established roles or relations in the landscape. Storytelling emerged not merely as anecdotal noise but as a powerful driver of coexistence interpretations. In the context of limited experience and scientific knowledge, stories amplified negative encounters, fuelled fear, and polarised discourses. These disputes over belonging are likely to be reproduced wherever WBFP populations expand under the Scottish Government’s current approach, which has helped construct WBFPs as a feral pest rather than a species with which coexistence must be negotiated.