Big Bad Boar 



by Burgess H. Scott 



THE most dangerous sport- 

 ing adversary in the 

 South some say in all the 

 United States lives deep in 

 the Cherokee National For- 

 est of southeastern Tennessee. 

 It is the wild European 

 boar, a goo-pound fighting 

 machine that shows equal 

 savagery toward the men and 

 the dogs who hunt him. Last 

 year there were approximate- 

 ly 700 of the animals roaming 

 the forest's 87,000 acres, and yearly state-controlled hunts have 

 made nearby Tellico Plains the boar-hunting capital of the 

 United States. 



The present boars are descendants of a few wild pairs brought 

 over in about 1910 by a group of Englishmen to stock a hunting 

 club near the North Carolina line. The term "boar," as used 

 here, does not denote sex, but is a breed name applied to both 

 males and females. Originally, the club was also stocked with 

 elk, deer, and bear. There are still bear and deer in the locality, 

 though the elk seem to have diminished to the vanishing point. 

 After a time the club disbanded and the animals were left to 

 shift for themselves. Now the boars are the animal rulers of the 

 forest, with no natural enemy but the black bear, which is dan- 

 gerous only to the young pigs. A full-grown boar is more than a 

 match for a bear. 



The Cherokee boars are tremendously powerful beasts covered 

 with a sort of fur rather than the usual hog bristles. Their wea- 

 pons are hard, yellow tusks (called "tushes" by the natives) that 

 are actually elongations of their canine teeth. These, propelled 



106 



