Humans Use 'BoarCurling' to Rescue Wild Boars From Slippery Frozen Lake

Curling, the only Olympic sport that involves wielding a cleaning instrument, is not often a heroic pastime. But for a group of Swedish boars, the frozen shuffleboard variant recently became a life-saving procedure. 

Some skaters were out on a guided ice tour on Lake Båven in southeast Sweden when they spotted four wild pigs bumbling around like Bambi on the slippery ice, according to Swedish nature site Natursidan. The boars had somehow gotten themselves stuck in the middle of the lake, and couldn’t get enough traction to move.

As it turns out, boars glide across ice with relative ease, so a few of the skaters simply pushed them to shore with their trekking poles—as if the boars were curling stones and the poles delivery sticks. The animals were too exhausted from trying to struggle off the ice to resist. There were no sweepers on hand to keep the boars moving in a straight line, alas, but they all made it to shore eventually. You can watch one of the boar-rescue operations in the video above.

The look on the boar’s face as he gets pushed across the ice—so sad, so baffled. We’ve all been there, buddy. The delivery sticks of progress are unstoppable.

*Please note that boars, like most wild animals, can be dangerous under certain circumstances, so we generally do not advise poking them with sticks. Even though we totally, totally wish boar curling was an internationally recognized sport, maybe avoid trying it yourself.

[h/t: Robert Watt]

Banner image screenshot via Vimeo.