Page 35 - NORDIC SAFARI CLUB CHAPTER NEWSLETTER 1st QUARTER 2021

have learnt how to hunt them in interesting andexciting amongst them. Then there is the red river hog, the
ways. For example, after a cold night you can be sure orange host of the deep bakos that we hunt by calling
that they will be out and about. It is not necessary to go them! Three pigs, three colours (grey, orange and
out early as it is not possible to follow the tracks in the black), three biomes and three types of hunt: the “PIG
dry season and also because they don’t walk at night. GRAND SLAM” of CAR. Sure, it is not a dangerous
My technique consists of walking slowly around an game challenge but it is very demanding and not easy
area where they live. I usually start in a bako (a finger to achieve. This area in the eastern corner of CAR is
of rain forest on either side of a stream) and walk the only one where you can find them on one hunt.
towards a salt lick or a meadow while trying to catch
the scent of their odour or the sound of their flapping
ears, the crackling of trampled leaves or their
vocalisations. But do not walk across their salt licks or
clearings and leave your scent because, if you do, your
hunt will be fruitless.

You can cover the area twice a day because they visit
the salt licks almost every day. In between you can
check some other spots especially when the sun is at
its zenith as the best time to find them is between
11h00 and midday at salt licks and from 14h00 to
15h00 in the clearings or meadows where they feed.

When you see them and the wind is in your favour, you
can slowly move in very close, a few metres from them
at any rate but, if they get your wind, they will rush flat
out back to the nearest bako.

Unknown and undescribed, giant forest hog, in an area
where they are found in large numbers, are interesting,
exciting, challenging and satisfying to hunt. They are a
new passion for me – is it their ugliness or their
craftiness?

The GFH is not the only pig in CAR. In fact, CAR is the
only place in Africa where you can hunt all the
indigenous wild pigs. Of course there is the eternal
warthog in good numbers and some very good tuskers

Skulls of warthog, red river hog and GFH