PIG HUNTING SHOULD BE BANNED

by Sandra Kyle, Editor, May Safely Graze

 

A 77 year old man was taken into custody this week, and given name suppression.  The man has been accused to shooting two pig hunters, one of whom died at the scene, the other airlifted to hospital in non-critical condition.

This tragic incident took place on a remote rural road, the 309 road on the Coromandel Peninsula.  There on the property his parents bought more than 70 years ago the man shares his life with hundreds of ‘wild’ pigs.  He feeds them, looks after them, tends to them when they’re sick or injured.  He’s well known in the area and tourists drop by from all over to meet the pigs and cuddle the piglets.  Film makers Amy Taylor and James Muir interviewed him ten years ago, and the video is available on youtube.

“I’m here to help them,” the man says in the video of his friendly, domesticated pigs.  “If they get sick or anything they come up to see me.  If a pig dog’s chewed their ears off or arrows sticking out their stout.

“They’ve got real neat natures.  They’ve all got their own personalities like people. Little gentle souls. They don’t do anyone any harm. They’re really social animals. It really upsets me when they run them over on purpose, grab them, knife them, stick them with a crossbow. It’s a really cruel death.

“They just walk up to people and they just shoot them with a crossbow. Put them in all that pain. Very slow deaths.  Breaks your heart when you see an animal suffering like that”.

The pensioner is always having run-ins with pig hunters, who come onto his property at night, trying to steal his pigs.  Some are deliberately mowed down by cars.  “I normally bury them facing towards the sun. Not sure why.  I’m an old fella but I still cry when I lose an animal”.

Recently a New Zealand pig-hunting TikTok showed a wild boar cornered by six dogs.  The hunter can be heard egging his dogs on as three of them latch onto the pig’s face.

The boar is cornered by the increasing number of dogs sinking their teeth into his body, and then the hunter walks over and slaps the pig’s leg.  The pig tries to kick back and you can hear him groaning in pain.  The video went viral.

Is this what we celebrate?  The torture of animals?  Ill-treatment of wild animals is an offence under the New Zealand Animal Welfare Act 1999, but a defence can be made if the alleged conduct is considered generally accepted hunting practice.  How can shooting animals with a crossbow and dogs be deemed accepted hunting practice?

As far as I’m concerned there is no accepted hunting practice.  When we examine hunting through a lens of ethics and compassion, it becomes evident that all forms of hunting are fundamentally wrong, irrespective of the justifications for it. Pig hunting should be banned, at the very least there should be an immediate ban on using dogs and crossbows.  It is blatant cruelty to pigs to put them through such torment, and it’s also dangerous for the dogs.

The tragedy this week has touched many lives.  A family is grieving for the loss of their loved one, and hundreds of pigs are now without their dad and carer.   This normally gentle, mild-mannered man, after twenty years of trying to protect his pets, found hunters trying to kill them and he finally snapped.

He will be appearing in Court this week.  I will be following this case with interest.

And meantime, who will look after the pigs?  Will hunters be having a killing fest on the Coromandel Peninsula?