Forest rangers from the Forest of Dean have visited Germany to find out how the country is dealing with a sudden rise in its wild boar population.

Experts from the Dean wanted to learn how German rangers try to stop their boar population spiralling out of control and prevent the animals moving into urban areas.

A Gloucestershire County Council-led task group wants to know what they have learned to make sure the Forest does not see the same problems caused by boar as Germany does.

The council's community security committee chairman, Cllr Terry Hale, asked the Forestry Commission to tell councilors in January what they plan to do to stop the German situation being repeated in the Forest, which has one of the biggest boar populations in the UK.

"We are seeing more and more of them and they are increasingly becoming a nuisance," said the Coleford councilor.

"We don't want to get rid of the boar all together because they are part of the area's heritage.

"But if the Government says we have to live with them, then we want to know how the Forestry Commission plans to keep them under control.

"I know they have been to Germany and Belgium because there is concern about the same thing happening over here. The situation there is pretty horrendous and we want to know what lessons have been learned to stop it happening here."

In February the Government decided against a mass cull of the boar population, which is centred on the Dean, Herefordshire and Dorset, and left it up to landowners to control the population.

Most rangers believe official figures, which claim there are 120 animals in the Dean, underestimate the number of boar.

They claim the population is doubling every year and attribute the growth to mild winters, the spread of commercial crops such as maize, and a near complete lack of natural predators.

German experts believe at least 10,000 live in Berlin suburbs, and last month one smashed its way through French windows and burst into a Frankfurt nursery class.

The situation is so bad that football club Hertha Berlin called in marksmen to cull boar turfing up the pitch with their snouts.

But authorities in the Dean fear the same thing happening. Marksmen have already shot one boar outside a primary school in Ruardean and there have been reports of sows attacking dogs.

Landowners are also angry about boar damage and Defra are putting some wild pigs on the contraceptive pill.

Mr Hale said some people are too nervous to walk their dogs in the woods and that poachers are "winging" boar with guns.

He expects the Forestry Commission policy to be ready in January and said one of the lessons learned in Germany is that people could not treat boar like pets, or the animals would leave woods to look for easy food in towns.

"I think at the moment they are doing the occasional cull and frightening them back into the woods.

"But I think they know this is just the tip of the iceberg and that is why they have been to Germany to see how they control their stock," said the Forest of Dean councillor.