WORLD’S LARGEST PIGS

Evening Star, Issue 22441, 11 September 1936, Page 12

WORLD’S LARGEST PIGS

IN MOUNT KENYA FORESTS MONSTERS WEIGHING SOOLB The giant forest hog was the last to be discovered of all the great beasts of Central • Africa (writes Hi C. Gander Dower), Even in 1902, when Sir Harry Johnstone first transformed the okapi from fantastic legend into fact, this iromen'se pig was still unknown, though Johnstone himself suspected the presence of yet another undiscovered animal in the equatorial forests.' The giant forest hog is the largest of the pigs, and' bears- a Latin name, Hylopheorus Meinertzhageni, in proportion to its size. 7 Three times as Heavy as a wart hog—an adult may weigh anything up to 5001b —it is often compared in size with a donkey or niule, .though' the legs'are' much ,shorter.’ . Through sheer inaccessibility the giant forest hog, like the okapi, Has gained a reputation for rarity beyond its deserts. In British territory it may ba found on the slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aherdares, between the 7,000 ft and-10.000ft levels,- always in the very densest forest.

I decided to make my attempt at capture in this area. A specimen obtained there would need careful acclimatisation' to sea; level, but' would' be more likely to withstand, the English climate than one from the Congo basin. We took-witb us-two-skilled Wanderobo for tracking pig, and for. baying pig numbers of native ddgs, whose appearance and pedigrees would have caused ’an H.M. Bateman scene at Cruft’s. We were proudest of all of our deep-sea fishing net and of our two football nets, for it was our cheerful theory that 'once a’ pig had been tracked and bayed and sufficiently exhausted we could run in and convert it into a netted pig. This plan, startling as it sounds, did not appear unduly* optimistic. as we had with us a number of natives who thought little of mobbing a cheetah or wart hog barehanded. The result of the next -six weeks’ erratic skirmishing was one incapacitated white man, one dead porcupine, one dead dog, and the remarkable total of 31 puppies. 'There were also the skins of four giant hogs; killed after Homeric battles in defence of ourselves or of our dogs. The skin of one of them measured 7ft lOin from snout to tip of tail, and of this the tail itself was only 14in. The failure of our efforts had been due quite as much to the restraint and intelligence of the bogs as to their ferocity and size. A wart hog. when bayed usually charges so wildly that after a few minutes it becomes exhausted. The giant hogs behaved in a very different manner. We found them on the whole unexpectedly easy to bay, but that was the limit of our success. They .wasted no energy in futile demonstrations. Instead, they backed into the very densest bamboos they could find, usually on precipitous hillsides, and* there, they did precisely nothing at all. A man only.realised what an ineffective, clumsy creature he is when attempting to make bis_ way through these thickets; and if in addition he tries to enmesh a perfectly fresh and rather angry 5001 b hog among bamboos growing only a foot apart he plumbs futility. The bamboos proved no. obstacle to the hog, who would bide its time and at the right moment charge. ANOTHER ATTEMPT. We made our next attempt on the south-western slopes of Mount Kenya. Here hogs were more plentiful than in the Aherdares, and there were no bamboos, though to the height of two or three feet the actual underbrush was thicker. This time, instead of making a direct attack, we planned to : erect a boma around our quarry after it had been bayed, at a distance of 70ft, which experience had shown was not suniciently close to provoke the pig t° ac " tion. This boma was to consist ot nets, supported at intervals on light 7ft poles. ' Once all was ready we proposed to bolt the pig, hoping that it would entangle itself in the general collapse tor a few vital seconds. Everything would depend on speed in erecting the boma, but our boys showed surprising aptitude, and, with some were capable of completing the task in less than five minutes. ~ It began to look as though we would never catch a forest hog. f? r . ,r months we had “ sought it with thimbles and sought it with care ; we had. pursued it “ with forks and hope, and we had never looked like obtaining a live specimen. As a last resort we decided to use loop snares, a s y, s .tom only practicable in one particular little stretch of country where pigs were numerous and bad made their own tracks to water. ~ ... , Here, too, there was no possibility ot catching animals protected under the

various ordinances, and Captain Ritchie, the game warden of the colony, very kindly gave us the special permission without which all trapping is illegal. Our success was as immediate as it was unexpected, though we soon found that three-eighth inch wire rope was necessary if full-grown hogs were not to break away. Our football nets came into their own at last, and in triumph we bore our captive swung in a hammock, back to camp. He was a young male—perhaps 10 months or a year old. Though his tusks had not yet appeared, he was already _ the size of a large wart hog, and weighed at a rough guess 2001 b.

Wart' hogs in captivity are disappointing animals. If confined ■in a large space they are reputed to run amok, either shattering' their fencing or injuring themselves, while in a small box they will merely refuse to eat. Far this ‘reason we had had a large pit constructed hr the forest, since a bog would be so familiar with earth that it would realise the stupidity of charging it. Protected from the sun by overhanging trees, he would experience as little break in normal conditions as was compatible with confinement. Whether these precautions were necessary I do not know, but from the first our hog displayed a remarkable sanity and, contentment, in captivity. LITTLE FEAR. He did not charge the walls. He fed immediately, and never lost condition. He displayed little fear of man; at the approach of a human being he would stand quite still looking at him out of the corner of his eye, or would pay no attention whatsoever. He quickly adapted 'himself to daylight feedingconsumed prodigious bundles of food and shrieked with seeming ferocity for a new supply as soon as the last was finished.' After only a day or two he learned to take food from my hand. But until the time I left Africa no one Lad dared to descend within reach of a charge. - -