It's a cunning boar that lives to the ripe old age of six. According to Bryan Lester who was one of the three hunters that felled the wild boar on Saturday, the cunning old ones have managed to evade the hunter's gun. But this boar's days were numbered when three bullets felled him on the Rangitaiki Plains on the Napier-Taupo Highway.
Stratford hunters Bryan, Kahu Ngaia and Ian Lewis of Taupo entered their 95.5 kg prize boar in the Toko Wild Boar Hunt on Sunday. They beat 70 other teams with the heaviest boar and came second in the best set of tusks. On Monday they ventured south to Whanganui's Hunting and Fishing competition, and again beat the competition of 380 entries. But the wild boar hunt is tinged with sadness, and each of those who knew Bull, Bryan's four-year-old American Staffordshire terrier, has shed a tear. Bull was charged and killed by the wild boar's tusk in the fight of their lives. Bull was buried where he fell.
"He would have put up a big fight. He was a big dog, but wonderful around the kids."
Bryan said the three hunters were in the hunt for the sport, and had been hunting together for 10 years.
The men hunt all over the North and South Islands, and always prominent in their minds is the golden rule of hunting, identify your target. And for this target, a wild boar that took out Bull the Stratford hunting dog, he's on his way to the taxidermist in Napier.
A WILD BOAR NO MORE...
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