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Article by: Hoff, Joseph S - Nov 2004

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Once the dogs are set loose on the path of wild boar in the New Zealand bush country, you wait amid the stony silence. . . .

You wait with only two knives and a weapon just in case you get in trouble under the shroud of darkness. Beads of sweat form on your brow. Fear begets the nervous chill that comes over you.

It could be hours between the release of the dogs and the moment when they begin barking, an auspicious sign that the dogs are upon the hunted wild boar. Then again, it could be just minutes until you too are on the trail of the wild boar.

When the clogs' yelping pierces the night, the hunt is underway. Your fear yields to the thrill of the chase, driving you to pursue the wild boar through the bush country of New Zealand. You don't know if when you come upon the wild boar, you will find a small boar whose meal is succulent or a fullgrown boar that makes for a trophy.

It is a familiar sequence of events for Tim Hannon, president of Hannon Electric Co. in Canton, Ohio. When he was 16 years old, the young man got a Rotary Exchange Scholarship and went to New Zealand, where he hunted wild boar for the first time. He has gone back three times since.

"While I was there, I worked on a sheep station as a shepherd," Hannon said. "I also worked as a lumberjack and as a fishing troll er."

Hannon lived in a town called Raetihi. More severe than the state of West Virginia in its hilliness, the terrain of New Zealand is such that little exists for one-hundred miles-save for bush country. Unacquainted with the land, Hannon welcomed direction from a native with intimate knowledge of the landscape. "I met a hermit and he took me into the bush country," Hannon explained. "He showed me how to hunt wild boar."

Renowned in New Zealand lor his skills as a wild boar hunter, the hermit kept goats and sheep. He was the beneficiary of land inhabited by livestock that had been turned loose and regenerated over the decades after many New Zealanders returned to England to help their families during the economic difficulty of the 1920's.

"He was a legend in New Zealand as far as wild boar hunting goes," Hannon said.

Following the barking of the dogs and the sounds of their subsequent struggle with the boar, Hannon and the hermit made their way through the bush country. When the hunters eventually arrived at the scene of the dogs on the boar, they found a tree to climb in case the dogs turned the boar loose prematurely. Once they determined the dogs had in fact subdued the boar, the hunters flipped the animal over on its back and made an incision from under its chin down to the breastbone.

"The first time I ever did it, I was scared to death," admitted Hannon, who has probably hunted 15 wild boar in all.

Although hunting boar can be dangerous, Hannon's most frightening experience didn't involve a boar. Rather, he was in pursuit of a wild goat with antlers that went up like those on an antelope. Hannon chased the wild goat on to a goat path. One side of the path faced a steep incline, and the other side dropped off into a river gorge. The wild goat charged, and Hannon grabbed hold of some brush in order to pull himself up over the path.

Today, Hannon oversees the operation of seven businesses. He doesn't hunt anymore, citing his inability to offer a sufficient justification for taking the life of a boar if he isn't going to eat it. The experience of hunting nonetheless forged a boy into a man.

"I didn't want to get older and say, 'I wish I'd done that when I was younger,'" Hannon said. "It turned me from a shy kid into a confident man."-JH