Wild boar aren’t part of Illinois’s native wildlife, whatever a bare record count might suggest. The animals turning up in the state are feral descendants of domestic pigs and released Eurasian stock, the same invasive lineage doing well-documented damage across the South, with Illinois sitting at the thin northern edge of that spread. Only 11 records exist statewide, placing the species in the rare bucket, with reports clustered near Cache River State Natural Area, Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, and the Upper Mississippi River refuge lands.
Records show up in January and again in September and October, with nothing reported in between, too few and too scattered to describe any real seasonal pattern. What the thin record set does suggest is that feral hogs remain an occasional presence in Illinois rather than an established one, unlike states farther south where sounders root through crop fields year-round.
Full species profile
