A wounded boar found its way onto the campus of Waimea High School early yesterday and made the mistake of charging a seasoned hunter and his students. When the 120-pound pig entered a fenced area and turned on the group,
A wounded boar found its way onto the campus of Waimea High School early yesterday and made the mistake of charging a seasoned hunter and his students.
When the 120-pound pig entered a fenced area and turned on the group, teacher Billy DeCosta began to call commands to the students, all seasoned hunters who had been on the trail with him.
“It was an aggressive, wounded boar,” said DeCosta, a noted hunter, candidate for County Council and the teacher who eventually killed the pig.
The boar entered the campus around 8:30 a.m., probably coming down to a nearby pond to nurse wounds sustained on Waimea Canyon Rim, a legal hunting area about half a mile away from the school, DeCosta said.
An increasing number of boars are coming into public spaces, DeCosta said.
Austin Figueira saw the boar approach a group of students who were leaving a classroom.
“Three girls — they were screaming,” said the junior, who called for DeCosta.
David Niau and Jason Beniamina grabbed the boar first.
“They have a lot of experience with this stuff because they are from Ni‘ihau,” DeCosta said.
The other students followed. “David told me, help him,” said Cyrus Dela Cruz. “We caught the boar right at the fence.”
DeCosta joined students Niau, Beniamina, Louis Rita, Landan Palama and Dela Cruz in a semi-circle, and the group began to try to herd the boar off-campus, DeCosta said.
Bill Arakaki, Waimea’s principal, credited the quick reaction of the group of juniors and seniors with keeping the situation under control.
“They isolated the interaction on the farm,” he said. “It wasn’t like we just wanted to do it. The kids, they help each other out here. Luckily we have students who are skilled in hunting.”
It was after the students herded the boar into a fenced area and it turned on them that it became necessary to kill it.
“We all worked as a pack,” DeCosta said. “We used the tools of the land to bring him down.”
The teens wrestled the animal to the ground and DeCosta punched a cattle fence pin into its head five times.
“I jammed him in the brain because he was attacking the kids. He had a huge arrow sticking out of his side, and he was foaming at the mouth,” DeCosta said.
Dela Cruz left school for the emergency room after the boar’s tusk hooked his left hand during the scuffle.
By the time the senior returned to the classroom, DeCosta had beheaded and skinned the pig, lining slabs of meat on the top shelf of a walk-in cooler outside of the agriculture building.
Students discussed plans for a Wednesday lu‘au.
As more natural habitat for wild boars is developed, human boar encounters will increase, experts say.
“There is a rise right now in some areas,” said Alvin Kyono, district manager of the Kaua‘i forestry and wildlife division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
“We have to address the problem, but we have to be mindful of residents,” he said, adding that encounters usually occur near Sleeping Giant, where the DLNR doesn’t allow hunting.
“This is the first I’ve heard about it in Waimea,” he said.
DeCosta displayed a razor broad arrow that he removed from the carcass.
DeCosta said this is the first time the teens wrestled a pig with their bare hands.
The experience ties in with his teaching style, said Waimea senior Kulia Palama. “We don’t just sit down in class, we go hands on.”
DeCosta said he had been teaching Hawaiiana in the classroom, and the event reinforced his lessons.
“This is a cultural experience,” he said.
“How many times do you have a chance to teach the actual experience? Ten or 20 years down the road, this is what they’re going to remember.”
• Charlotte Woolard, business writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or cwoolard@kauaipubco.
com.
