Bacon strikes back? Watch this video of pigs attacking people at stores and a tourist site (location can’t be determined by the video):
This is not the only example of pigs attacking. American voters may have trouble with the wild boors serving in Congress, but wild boars can attack animals and people. A few newspaper reports in recent months:
A young woman was left shaken after being chased by a pack of wild boars in a suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden.
Stockholm county police write on their website that the woman was out walking in the evening when she met more than a dozen wild boars.
When the surprised woman turned tail and fled the boars gave chase. She luckily met a group of young people who were able to scare away the pack of pursuing porkers.
Drought conditions have increased the number of wild dog and feral pig sightings in far west New South Wales.
Wild dogs regularly attack livestock, like calves and sheep.
But feral pigs have also been seen attacking live animals.
Annie White from Border Downs station, which is 200 kilometres north of Broken Hill, says feral pig numbers are booming. She says she regularly sees them on her property.
“Sometimes you’ll see a pack of 20 or 30 of them and quite often you’ll see sows together with a heap of little pigs.
“My partner was out the other day and he found six of them eating a live calf – he had to shoot the calf and shoot the pigs as well.”
“They wouldn’t normally kill something or eat something that’s alive, they usually eat dead animals.”
And it’s not only the feral pigs attacking livestock. Ms White says wild dogs too are leaving their marks.
“Quite often you’ll see sheep with bite marks in them.
“We see one or two dogs a week and other times we won’t see any for months but we do see quite a few dog tracks.”
Ms White says she’d like to see pig strength meat baits become available to NSW graziers.
America has a big pig problem – lots of them, including a number of giants.
There are more than 6 million wreaking havoc in the U.S., with Texas topping the list with a troubling 2 million. Feral hogs cause billions of dollars in property damage each year, running around in packs devasting farmland.
One of the larger ones was shot on Feb. 28 by Jett Webb of Conetoe, N.C. On a scale for tobacco bales that was certified to 500 pounds, the wild boar bottomed it out.
“It was a true beast!” said Michael Mansell, president of the White Oak Ranch Hunting Club where the pig was taken. Check out the rest of the story in North Carolina Sportsman.
Wild boar made headlines a decade ago starting with Hogzilla, a male hybrid of wild hog and domestic pig that was killed by Chris Griffin in Alapaha, Ga. Its size was exaggerated to 1,000 pounds, but that was debunked. It was still big at 800 pounds.
Soon after a youth killed what became known as Monster Pig, a true 1,000-pound pig. The hunt was exposed and the canned hunting operation took plenty of heat as its owners had recently purchased Fred, the overfed domestic swine.
Hopefully all this doesn’t boar you.
UPDATE:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.