Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Hunting the Cape bush pig
The aggressive and often dangerous Cape bush pig causes thousands of rand worth of damage each year to fences, lands and even lambs in times of drought in the Eastern Cape.
Consequently it has been classified under the vermin list in terms of the Cape Game Ordinance and is hunted by hunters and their trained dogs. Many an Eastern Cape hunting hounds bears scars of a pig hunt and many are felled when a sow with young charges the pack, ripping bellies open with razor-sharp tusks that measure up to 125mm in length.
Tuber crops, mealies and pineapples
(in the coastal areas of Peddie, Bathurst and Alexandria) are the favourite foods of the bush pig.
Netted fences do not deter this thicknecked animal; if it wants to enter a fenced land, the pig merely burrows a shallow hole under the fence, inserts his snout beneath the lowest wire strand and lifts the netting.
These gaps in the fences, particularly in jackal-proofed netting fences, makes it easy for these animals to get at sheep and goat kids — a much sought-after diet of both the jackal and particularly the wild pig in times of drought, when crops have failed.
The pig will also eat any animal carcass, whether it be newly dead or whether the meat has already become putrid. Because of this, 80% of wild pig have measles.
The meat of a wild pig that has measles contamination can cause echinococcosis — a form of tapeworm, in human beings if it is eaten before it has been deep-frozen for a period of time and not properly cooked before consumption. Duggie Doyle of Charlo, Gqeberha, and his pack of trained harrier/ foxhounds has declared war on the bush pig. In the past five years, he and his hunting partners have killed 280 in the region.
HUNTING SPECIALIST
Doyle is a pig-hunting specialist and seldom does he return home empty handed. The farmers know it because his telephone sometimes rings late at night when a farmer will say: “Bring your pals and your hounds, the pigs are eating me bankrupt.”
Forty-eight-year-old Doyle shot his first pig on his father’s farm near Thornhill when he was 10. Since then he has lost count of the thousands of pigs he has killed but he has kept records for the past five years. His hunting team is made up of four ‘guns’ and a constant pack of 18 hounds but this figure varies because dog losses are sometimes heavy. There are, however, always replacements for the pack because two selected breeding bitches are kept to provide replacements.
RAPID RESPONSE
After Doyle has received a telephone call to say that pigs are on a certain farm, he contacts his hunting team and before dawn the next day they are on the property. A careful scout is made to find fresh spoor of the cloven-hoofed animal and once it is found the dogs are unleashed and the hunt is on. Soon the hounds “give tongue” and the hunters will know that a pig, or pigs, have been flushed. Then it is a hell-for-leather chase after the dogs until frenzied baying and barking indicates that a pig has tired from its run and has turned on the dogs.
Normally an adult pig will place its hindquarters in the thickest bush it can find and face its adversaries, head chopping and swinging from side to side. In the case of a sow with young, however, the animal will not stand but will charge into the pack, ripping, biting and slashing with its two large front tusks. When a pig has been cornered or is standing, the hunter nearest the animal will stealthily approach and give it a head-shot while the pig’s attention is focused on the dogs.
“Go for the nearest tree or get out of the pig’s path if it charges,” is Doyle’s advice to would-be pig hunters. A wounded pig will not run but will stand and fight its pursuers. At this stage it will be in its most dangerous mood, with no fear of human or canine.
For Doyle and his pals, pig hunting is a sport and also a service to the farmer, so they do not seek remuneration. They use their own vehicle and do all the work themselves. Their only payment for killing the cropdamaging pigs is the carcasses (sometimes they kill up to five pigs in a morning), which are shared between the hunters.
Bones and offal are kept for food for the hounds while meat fit for human consumption is either cooked or placed in a brine solution until the salt has permeated the pork. A pinkish coloured ham, almost the same colour as the cooked ham of a domestic porker, will be produced after it has been cooked.
This article first appeared in the
14 March 1979 issue of Farmer’s Weekly and has been edited to adhere to the current style of the magazine.