by Tony Orman
Marlborough huntress Kim Swan epitomises a trend that women in increasing numbers are taking up hunting. Kim Swan has now been hunting for quite a few decades as she began as a youngster under the tuition of her mother.
“I was born into a family of outdoors adventurers,” she says. “From an early age, I learned to embrace Nature and the natural world.”
Now she is a very experienced hunter and over the years, has regularly put pen to paper about her hunting adventures, featuring in magazines and in fact has written several books. Her tenth book has just hit the bookshelves.
Kim has no thoughts of retiring from climbing the hills with her faithful dogs.
“The fact that I am a woman, a mother and grandmother, sporting grey hair and a limp makes no difference,” she says.
Women hunters are increasing in numbers. The number of registered female hunters in the US has grown over the last couple of decades and today, around 20% of women in the US are hunters.
New Zealand women hunters seem on the same upward trend.
A recent issue of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association’s magazine New Zealand Hunting and Wildlife features several articles by women hunters. One was Courtney Pellow telling of three women on an alpine hunt for tahr and chamois in the Mt Cook area of the Southern Alps.
Guided by a hunting guide, Courtney’s photo with a chamois trophy was on the cover of the magazine.
“We have more female hunters in New Zealand and the NZDA than ever before,” she says.
But then there’s always been some women hunters around – even a century or so ago.
For example there were always one or two notable women hunters in the last century, such as Ethne Herrick, wife of legendary deerstalker Major Eddie Herrick. Around the 1930s, Eddie Herrick was prominent in Fiordland taking two bull moose from a herd that was never numerically strong. Ethne successfully hunted in Fiordland and shot a bull wapiti. She also stalked the Otago deer herds and selectively shot some big red deer stags.
Today some women go hunting deer, chamois and tahr while others such as Kim Swan accompanied by three or four dogs are into pig hunting.
In her tenth book “Hogs, Dogs and Rifle” just published, she has written 60 chapter accounts of her hunting adventures.
She admits to being hopelessly addicted to the outdoors and in particular taking to the hills with her faithful dogs and rifle and just revelling in being there.
Kim lives an unusual life.
“I live rural, work alone, wear no watch and carry no phone. I could be sitting at my desk writing one day or scaling a mountainous ridge to survey wildlife the next. I could be slinging a rifle over my shoulder and hunting wild game in the morning and driving my ancient tractor for hour upon hour in the afternoon.”
Kim has developed her own distinctive style of writing which blends self mockery with humour. The “kill” is not nearly as important as being in those Marlborough hills and mountains, with her dogs and seeing game. Her hunting has an admirable blending of selective killing with mercy. In one chapter she frees a big red stag from entanglement with a wire fence and watches it go.
Her book is an entertaining read, full of authentic, credible yarns.
Footnote:-“Hogs, Dogs and Rifle” by Kim Swan. Published by Bateman Books, Price $39.99.
Good on Kim Swan.
Sounds a very worthwhile book.