This originally appeared in the August/September 2024 edition of the NZ Hunter magazine
A Better Hunting guide for aspiring pig hunters
New Zealand’s pig hunters are a valued and unique part of the sector. There is a huge amount of preparation and work that goes into pig hunting, above and beyond what’s required with other game animal hunting. For those without an ‘in’, even dabbling or learning what’s involved in pig hunting can seem like an insurmountable challenge.
To help, the Game Animal Council have worked closely with the NZ Pig Hunting Association to build and launch an introduction to pig hunting course on Better Hunting. The course is online, and pig hunting really is something that must be ‘done to learn’ but you can get much more from time with your mentors after learning some theory first.
Even if you’re not actively looking to hunt pigs, a quick look over the course may be of interest. Understanding the mechanics of pig hunting can prove valuable when you encounter pigs and pig hunters on the hill, and an appreciation of other hunting styles never goes amiss.
The new pig hunting course on Better Hunting addresses key topics for pig hunters including ethics, animal welfare, dog training, working with landholders, personal safety, firearms selection, responsibilities and obligations.
So, what’s in the course? Here’s some main areas of focus you can explore.
The people side of things
As hunters, we all have responsibilities and things we need to consider, and these are different depending on what type of hunting you’re doing. Some key responsibilities and considerations for pig hunting include:
Social licence
Pig hunting is an important activity for game animal management and every pig hunter’s behaviour impacts the perception of pig hunting. It’s important that collectively, we hold each other accountable in achieving best practice standards when pig hunting.
The course explores how social license is not only about operating under best practice hunting yourself, but also influencing others to do the same.
If you enjoy pig hunting, it’s important you say so and do what you can to make the activity of pig hunting a net positive for your community.
Consider joining a pig hunting club – this can show that you’re sticking around and responsible when you’re looking for access to private land.
Land access
A lot of pig hunting takes place on private land, requiring the permission and approval of the landholder. When you’re out, you need to make sure you stay within the boundaries of where you’ve been given access.
If you’re using dogs, they don’t care about property boundaries so before setting out, consider getting neighbouring landholder contacts and permission to recover dogs if they go beyond the boundaries of the property you’re hunting.
If you’re pig hunting on public conservation land, a permit is needed and there might be conditions on things like number of dogs permitted or dog training requirements.
Improving land access and hunting opportunities for pig hunters relies on the whole sector self-managing to ensure and improve the positive perception of pig hunting.
Pig welfare
Dogs make pig hunting unique in that once they’ve found a pig, it’s all go! When a dog is bailing a pig, you need to be fit enough to reach them and dispatch the pig as quickly as possible.
There is legislation in place that sets out rules around treating wild animals, including when you’re hunting them. Be careful and safe but be quick about things.
Using a knife versus a gun means you’ll be dispatching the pig differently. The pig hunting course will teach you how to ensure a quick finish when your dogs are bailing.
The pigs
Pigs have unique biology and behaviours compared to other game animals, which provides different hunting opportunities you won’t find hunting other game.
Pigs get around! They can be found in all sorts of landscapes and could be a candidate for New Zealand’s most unique game animal. They’ll eat most things, and their sign is a dead giveaway to where they’ve been. And they’re smart (especially the big old boars). Knowing how they operate, and the seasonal changes to their behaviour can help you be more successful when hunting them. For example, pigs can’t sweat. In summer, they’ll find places to keep cool.
Scent is a critical part of hunting pigs, especially when you have dogs. It’s important to be mindful of your own scent, but also how your dogs might scent a pig nearby.
Big old pigs can be found anywhere – be mindful when carrying them out. It’s not worth injuring yourself after a successful hunt!
The dogs
Pig dogs play a crucial role in pig hunting – through finding, bailing, stopping and holding a pig.
It’s up to you to mimimise the risk to your dog as much as possible and as mentioned,there is legislation that sets out your responsibilities as an owner both to keep your dog safe, and to keep others safe around your dog.
Your dog’s behaviour is your liability. It’s important to have well-trained, well-behaved and respectful dogs. It’s a dog’s nature to behave differently when out in the hills, so doing the work to train your dog before heading out is important.
Among other things, the course talks about some of the different breeds of dogs commonly used for pig hunting and how tracking collars can be useful (finding your dog’s quickly when bailing means you’ll likely find a pig too!).
Bringing it all together
All the preparation, training, land access planning, and dog handling can seem a bit overwhelming – how does it all come together? The course finishes by stepping through a theoretical hunt – from planning to execution – where two hunters head out on a hunt with different levels of pig hunting experience. They take a dog with them.
Walk through the hunt to see how they hunt following the best practice guidelines in the course. Help them prepare, find a place to hunt, understand access and permissions, and then undertake the hunt itself (spoiler alert – they get a pig).
What’s the point?
The pig hunting course will help you pick up the ‘minimum standard of knowledge’, so you can spend more time studying the practical stuff with your mentors (like how they handle their dogs).
We strongly recommend you get started on the practical stuff by joining a local club and/or tagging along with an experienced pig hunter. Clubs provide a lot of information, advice, community, and some are provided club-only hunting access to private forestry blocks and similar.