pigs (Sus spp.)
The rooting behaviour of pigs may help to prepare woodland sites for natural regeneration but pigs also damage trees by rubbing against them, stripping bark and chewing roots. Some hardy breeds of domesticated pig can live on grass for much of the summer, eat the rhizomes of bracken and have been used to break up the thick litter layer following the clearance of rhododendron. See conservation grazing, pannage. The domestic pig belongs to the same species as its ancestor the wild boar (S. scrofa).
This definition is abridged from A – Z of tree terms: A companion to British arboriculture.
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