There are plenty of warthogs in Africa, but truly huge ones are almost as rare as hundred-pound elephants.
Photo above: Boddington and PH Poen van Zyl with a spectacular warthog, taken in coastal Mozambique on November 16, 2025. With extreme length, nice curve, and good mass throughout, this is the best warthog the author has ever seen. He was shooting a Winchester M88 in .308.
Some of us care greatly about antler, horn, or tusk size. Others, not so much. I’m in the middle; I appreciate an exceptional animal of any species, but I rarely carry a tape. An extra-large animal can sometimes be taken through extreme effort. Hunting hard and long in the right places, looking, sorting, and passing. More often, it happens through blind luck.
In mid-November 2025, I took a huge warthog. Not just my largest–the biggest one I’ve ever seen. Also perfect, with thick, evenly matched tusks forming an attractive ellipse.
Among the hundreds of big-game species, greatness varies. With elephants, the milestone to greatness is 100 pounds of ivory on one tusk. I’ve never seen such a tusker. In days gone by, hunters spent weeks and months tracking elephants in Africa’s most remote corners, hoping for a chance at one. Few ever succeeded.
No one puts in the effort for a big warthog that is expended for a big elephant. Warthogs are common game, sighted daily in most areas. In fact, the warthog is probably Africa’s most widespread animal, found everywhere except the driest deserts and the deepest forests. East to west, Kenya to Senegal; north to south, Eritrea to the Cape. Although rarely at the top of any safari wish list, the warthog is a classic and unique African animal. They are on license in most areas, and most hunters will take one if an opportunity presents itself.
There are lots of good warthogs, and there’s a big difference between good and great. Among the most common animals, such as impalas, and warthogs, it takes an extra-big one to become great. In part, this is because many are taken, so the bar is high. Also, common animals like impalas, reedbucks, and warthogs are primary prey species. With a full suite of predators, not all can live to maturity and realize their full horn or tusk potential.
This is especially true with warthogs because they are long-lived and slow-growing. A huge warthog is eleven or twelve years old. This means it has to beat the odds and evade two and four-legged predators for many years, and must also have the genetics to grow big teeth. In rocky terrain, tusk wear is accelerated and breakage is common. Throughout their vast range, exceptional warthogs are almost as rare as unicorns–or hundred-pound elephants.
“Exceptional,” of course, is a matter for conjecture. A lot of warthogs are lopsided, with one or the other tusk broken or badly worn (likewise elephants). Some hunters like that, others don’t. The SCI system uses length and girth of both tusks. Rowland Ward uses the length of the longest tusk. In both systems, the major or upper tusks must be withdrawn from the skull to be measured. With warthogs, the length inside the upper jaw usually adds about two and a half inches to the exposed length. The Rowland Ward world record is a tie between a monster from Sir Edmund Loder’s collection, dating back to 1921, and Chris Kruger’s giant, taken in northwestern South Africa in 1996. Both measured 24 inches.
That’s amazing, far beyond exceptional. Rowland Ward’s records date back to 1892. To this day, Rowland Ward lists only six warthogs with one tusk exceeding 20 inches. None of us are likely to see such a pig. The minimum for entry is 13 inches, a slightly more possible prize, and perhaps a suitable milestone for “exceptional.”
On my first safari, naturally, a warthog was on my list. It had been dry on the Tsavo Plain, and warthogs need water. Over time, I would learn that warthogs suffer in dry years, and big, older boars seem to go first. Although it was good warthog country, we saw few and it was late in the hunt before I saw a decent boar. On that safari, we started up on Mount Kenya and my shooting was awful. Then we moved to the more open Tsavo thornbush. I straightened out and was doing great until the warthog. I missed him running, more than once, then connected. Although not exceptional, he was a good boar, the kind of warthog most of us take and are justifiably proud to have.
I’ve had a thing for warthogs ever since, and am always on the lookout for an extra-large one. One of the best places I’ve seen was along the Aoukele River in Chad. Dry country, but there were pools along the river and every pool held warthogs. There was little game in the area, lots of poaching. The local people were Muslims and didn’t eat pork, so they left the pigs alone. My hunting partner Chris Kinsey shot a whopper, and I shot a good boar with one worn tusk. I wish we’d had more; that was a chance for greatness, but I didn’t yet know how rare big warthogs are.
The biggest warthogs in Rowland Ward, the ones with 18-inch-plus tusks, come from all over: Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Senegal, Uganda, Zaire, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. South Africa has produced more big warthogs than all the rest put together. In part, this reflects a numbers game. There is more hunting in South Africa, especially today, than anywhere else in Africa. Warthogs are common, and much of South Africa has developed and thus permanent water. Namibia also has huge numbers of warthogs, and it’s still a numbers game. Any area that has a lot of warthogs will have big ones. However, much of the country is arid, so numbers go up and down. Much of Namibia is also rocky, so worn tusks are common.
Although I’ve always got an eye out for an extra-large boar, I haven’t seen many exceptional hogs. When I have, I’ve usually been hunting for something else of more immediate importance. This is a mistake. Few African animals are as uncommon as huge warthogs. See one and pass, and that opportunity may not come again for a long time.
Over the years, I’ve seen very good warthogs all over Africa. Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia. In recent years, the best place I’ve seen is coastal Mozambique, around the mouth of the Zambezi. This is interesting because Mozambique is poorly represented in Rowland Ward’s listings.
I put this down to timing. Mozambique’s first hunting period, before her civil war, was short, from 1960 to 1975. Back then, all safaris offered multiples of the Big Five. Less time was taken sorting through the non-dangerous species, and trophy awareness wasn’t what it is today. In the wake of war, not much was left from 1990 into the 2000s. Since then, wildlife populations have been rebuilt by pioneering outfitters managing them with care, conservative harvest, and aggressive antipoaching efforts. Also, postwar, predators were as scarce as prey.
I started hunting in that area twenty years ago. I’ve seen all the species rebound. Warthogs were among the first because the mosaic of floodplain and forest is ideal habitat. Well-watered, with no periodic die-offs. And soft soil, where boars can grow long tusks. Today, the reintroduced lions take their toll, living primarily off warthogs. Still, it’s normal to see hundreds of warthogs daily. Look at enough warthogs, and there are bound to be a few big ones.
This year, with a small wish list and plenty of time, hunting with Poen van Zyl, I got serious about an exceptional warthog. Poen’s been hunting the area since he was in school, and has a warthog fetish to match my own. He’s guided hunters to many exceptional warthogs, including several in that extra-rarified 18-inch air. He even took one for himself, after the season was over and clients were gone.
So, this year, we put in several days looking for such a pig. We saw one right off the bat, walking out of a pan into the trees. I had the cross hairs on him at 60 yards, as he was walking straight away. Shooting a .308, I probably could have gotten away with the Texas heart shot. But maybe not. I kept thinking he would turn, but he kept walking away, those wonderful tusks curling outside his body.
Even smart old pigs are surprisingly habitual, taking the same paths to and from water, often at much the same time of day unless disturbed. We probably disturbed him, because, despite effort, we never saw him again. We saw two other exceptional pigs, both already running for cover when spotted.
Late one morning we worked a mostly dry riverine, finding reedbuck, waterbuck, the odd bushbuck, and warthogs at every pool. Poen spotted a pig lying in mud at the edge of a pool. Even at distance, the gleam of ivory was obvious. We made a half-circle to get the wind right, came in through some trees, and Poen put up the sticks at 130 yards. The pig was almost facing me, looking as impressive as a hundred-pound elephant. I put the cross hairs under his chin and dropped him. Although Poen’s personal best is a bit bigger, this is the biggest warthog I’m ever likely to get—a trophy possibly even rarer than a hundred-pound elephant.
