Chantal Lyons
Nature and science writer
Chantal Lyons is the author of Groundbreakers: The Wild Boar’s Return to Britain, out now with Bloomsbury.
Groundbreakers was sparked when Chantal first went to the Forest of Dean in 2014 to interview local residents about their experiences of living with wild boar, for what she thought would never become more than a Masters dissertation. But the story of this myth-like creature and its return to Britain took hold of her – and has never let go.
For the duration of the research for and writing of Groundbreakers, Chantal lived in the Forest of Dean, immersing herself in the world of our restored wild boar. And she travelled further afield, across Britain and beyond, to learn how different people in different places are coming to coexist with the boar.
When not moonlighting as an author, Chantal is a science communicator at Mindfully Wired Communications.
An introduction to Groundbreakers
Big, messy and mysterious – crossing paths with a wild boar can conjure fear and joy in equal measure. Driven to extinction seven hundred years ago, a combination of the species’ own tenacity and illegal releases from the 1980s has seen several populations of this beast of myth begin to roam English and Scottish woods once more.
With growing worry over the impacts on both people and the countryside, the boar’s right to exist in Britain has been heavily debated. Their habitat-regenerating actions may benefit a host of other wildlife; but unlike beavers, these ecosystem engineers remain unloved by many. Why is there no clamour to reintroduce them across the land? And, with the few boar in England threatened by poaching and culling, why are we not doing more to prevent their re-extinction?
In Groundbreakers, Chantal Lyons moves to the boar’s stronghold of the Forest of Dean to get up close and personal with this complex, intelligent and quirky species. And she meets with people across Britain and beyond who welcome them – or want them gone. From Toulouse and Barcelona where they are growing in number and boldness, to the woods of Kent and Sussex where they are fading away again, to Inverness-shire where rewilders embrace their presence, join Chantal as she reveals what it might take for us to coexist with wild boar.
chantallyons.uk 