you cut the nuts out of the boars to A) stop them from breeding. B) stop them from producing testosterone (sp?) . you shoot a nice boar hog and his nuts are there, it doesnt take long for the meat to get saturated with the musky nasty tasting test. Guy last year killed a 80lbr and tossed it in teh ice chest with his deer meat, this was about 2hours after shooting it. Needless to say he had to trash everything. and cutting a ear is something we do so hunters can tell that the hog is good to shoot and doesnt have nuts.