Lucy's killer instinct I HUNT TO FEED MY FAMILY!

Ever since this gutsy mum took her first stab at catching food in the wild, she’s been hooked!

- AMY NELMES BISSETT

It might look like any other family outing, with Lucy Jaine, fiancé Sharn Stewart and their three children walking into the deep Southland wilderness. But after hearing their two dogs bark up ahead, Lucy breaks into a run, darting through the scrubland in hot pursuit of a wild pig.

Cornering it, she flips the pig over before plunging a knife in. “Sometimes it can get a bit gnarly, especially when the pig has big tusks, but I try to remember I’m killing it to feed my family,” Lucy says proudly.

These days, Lucy’s sevenyear-old stepdaughter Indie, son Kahu, four, and seven-month-old baby daughter Daisy rarely eat any meat that Lucy hasn’t hunted in the wild, before butchering and cooking it at their home in Wanaka.

“There’s a sense of pride when I feed my family something I’ve hunted,” says Lucy, 29. “We eat wild pork, venison, goat and kaimoana. We try to take the kids with us as often as possible. To see them out in the bush, their imaginations going wild, it’s so satisfying.

“I only really go into the supermarket now to buy things I can’t get from the local market. I generally do swaps with the farmers and other hunters in the area. I’ll give them a cut of pig for a chicken. It really is a great way to feed the kids.”