Tennessee Boar Hunt

To the average U. S. citizen, the wild boar is an exotic hog who lives in the Indian marshes and whose life is made miserable by handsome Bengal Lancers pursuing him with spears. This month in the rugged Great Smoky Mountains of southeastern Tennessee in Cherokee National Forest, a few U. S. sportsmen will have a chance to gain closer acquaintance with the animal.

Tennessee's boars, descended from Russian stock imported and freed by South Carolina planters some three decades ago, bear about the same relation to domestic pigs as a Tasmanian bushman bears to a Tammany district leader. Lean and muscular, weighing 150 to 400 lb., the boars' chief characteristics are great speed, ferocious courage, dagger-sharp tusks which can rip a dog or man to tatters. Tennessee mountaineers rate them more dangerous than bears. A Cherokee Forest ranger lately failed to stop one with ten bullets, escaped with his life only because his dog diverted the charging beast.

To thin out the Cherokee National Forest's population of 400-odd European boars and give U. S. hunters some unique sport, Tennessee's State Fish & Game Commission announced a hunt to begin Nov. 19, last ten days. Applications, of which 160 had been received by this week, may be sent to the State Fish & Game Commission at Nashville until the day of the hunt. The first 100 applicants to send in a special $5 fee (for cost of attending doctors, nurses and ambulance) will be accepted. Among 25 who had paid last week were Tennessee's newly-reelected Senator Nathan Lynn ("Nate") Bachman, Federal Judge George Caldwell Taylor of Knoxville, Mrs. William Stanley, 30-year-old wife of a University of Tennessee entomologist. Participants must also possess a State hunting license (resident $2, nonresident $15), may bag one boar each. No pigstickers, the Tennessee huntsmen may carry rifles of .25 calibre and up or automatic shotguns, take their chances on foot or on horseback. Automobiles are barred.

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