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Suffering Sus Scrofa

Author: Date: 04/12/2018

That evening, the weather was foggy and I could hardly see the moon. There was that icy wind blowing and my hope was that the wind might push the clouds aside, so that I could see a bit better. I went to one of our open drivenhunt-seats right in the middle of a field surrounded by quiet forests. No move for two and a half hours – my hands were getting cold from glassing but my WNTR gear kept the rest of my body nice and warm. Thoughts came up about leaving the place to go and sit next to our warm oven…  Then, suddenly there were some noises getting closer and I could figure out a mature sow with 8 little ones. After a while, one of the little frogs came broadside and as I wanted to squeeze the trigger, the sow made a noise and they were gone! Although not very far… After having put my Helix back into one corner of the high stand, I saw another movement to my right: there was a black shadow – or were it two shadows?! The sow checked the same direction and looked quite curious. When the clouds finally lifted a little more, I saw the dark shadow coming closer from the right: it was one big boar – and something was wrong with his hind legs, of which one shook from side to side. Back was the rifle in my hands and I used the next best possibility to shoot and stop that animal from further sufferings. Then there was silence and nothing to see: no shadows, no boar! I tried to contact a friend of mine who was sitting close by to come over and help but his mobile was not working. I was pretty unsecure; was the shot bad or did I even miss the whole animal?! I thought about leaving my stand but maybe the boar was still alive and waiting for someone to approach…

Finally I heard an engine coming closer – my friend came to fetch me. We took my dog out of the car and let her search for blood. My dog and me went straight for the forest and through some younger stuff where we finally found some blood and only a couple more meters was the Keiler lying dead. We estimated him at about four years old. He had two old wounds. The hind leg was wounded by an old shot and a bigger piece was missing on one of the forelegs. My shot was right behind the shoulder. A typical lung-shot, which can take a mature boar a couple meters till it collapses. I was so very happy that I did hesitate to shoot one of the small ones so that I was able to release that wounded Keiler from the terrible pains he must have been suffering… Man was I happy that evening – and my cold fingers were almost forgotten 🙂 Jenny Reichelt

 

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