BOAR champion Terry Hale will urge the Forestry Commission to save the Beechenhurst Six during a crisis meeting in January.

The man in charge of boar policy says the Forestry Commission has already killed too many of the wild pigs this year.

Now he will warn Forestry chiefs to spare the tame family of wild boar at the Forest's most popular picnic spot.

He will also put pressure on Forestry Deputy Surveyor Kevin Stannard to bring in a closed season for culling at an official meeting on January 14.

The Commission is facing a backlash after saying it would consider lifting official protection for the six when new cull targets are decided in March 2012.

But Councillor Hale's intervention will carry weight because he is seen as a neutral observer rather than an animal rights activist.

In 2008 he led a task group investigation which recommended boar numbers being kept to 90.

Only two days ago he tried to shoo the Beechenhurst Six back into the woods near the Speech House to save them from poachers.

"I started shouting at them to try to get them to run away but they are so tame it had the opposite effect and they started to come towards me," he said.

"People have been feeding them to their detriment, but they are very popular. Visitors come a long, long way to see them and I will be putting as much pressure as I can on Kevin Stannard to try to save them."

Coun Hale is also concerned about a five-year plan which recommends culling 250 boar a year.

He said: "We went through all that trouble of setting up a task group and coming up with the ideal number of 90 boar and then the Forestry Commission cull 153 without knowing exactly how many there are in the first place.

"They just shot and shot and shot and, in my view, they have gone far too far."