Ya, boars are bad news too. The adults are very deadly. Interesting theory about the hunters. Here are two stories.

My buddy, Joji Sugimori is a mineral dealer like me, but also a hunter. He hunts boars via the sling method. He just caught a huge one the other week, see tweet below. When I visited him last year he and his wife made boar curry for us. Tasted fine, but I had some bathroom issues a day or two after....
https://x.com/tenkawacrystal1/status/1990710842560819671?s=20

The other story is I was up in Chichibu, Saitama, deep in the mountains hunting minerals when I came across a group of 60's-70's something hunters. All very old dudes. They took down a huge deer though. I was standing about 30feet away when they unleashed the kill shot. Not sure of the rifle caliber, but it was big and loud.

Maybe your students are right, but my wife's uncle used those steel cages to trap the bears in Akita. I guess a gun would be needed to put the bear down?