That’s a big fucking pig.

Hogzilla had approximately the status of Bigfoot for quite a few years as nobody really wanted to believe a hog could get that big. And when it was finally shot there was, iirc, some irregularity with the recordkeeping and people still disputed the recorded weight etc.

Actually I started out thinking this was Hogzilla and was going to tell the story for people outside the range of Southern newspapers who might not have heard it, but went to google something about it and discovered this was a new one.

Geez.

Anyway, ’Zilla is getting a movie deal, so if you happen to own a particularly large swine, preferably good tempered, amenable to makeup and costume work, and, ideally, housebroken, set course for Atlanta.

And let us note that this pig here was killed by an 11 year old with a pistol:

Jamison, who killed his first deer at age 5, was hunting with father Mike Stone and two guides in east Alabama on May 3 when he bagged Monster Pig. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

Through it all, there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation for doing.

“I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited,” said Jamison, who lives in Pickensville on the Mississippi border. He just finished the sixth grade on the honor roll at Christian Heritage Academy, a small, private school.

Sigh.

There’s a distinct resemblance to dick cheney.

Well, naturally.

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

about some parts of this narrative btw. Specifically about the claim that an 11 year old kid—who admittedly, from the picture, appears to do his clothes shopping in what used to be called the “tall & hefty” department—committed this deed with a .50 caliber pistol.

Personally the last time I heard of .50 caliber weapons being in common use they were single-shot muzzleloaders and the period was Civil War and immediately post. (Fans of the movie “Jeremiah Johnson” will recall an incident involving .50 vs. .45 caliber Hawken rifles and a guy who had frozen to death after, iirc, a dispute with a bear.)

As is not infrequently the case my information is out of date and .50 caliber weapons, including handguns, are not at all uncommon these days for both civilian and military use.

But they have got to kick like a bitch, dammit, and it would be a most unusual kid of that age no matter how “hefty” he may be who could hit the broad side of a barn with one, or even fire it once without getting knocked ass over teakettle by recoil.

Hey, I wasn’t there. Maybe every word of it is, you should pardon the expression, Gospel truth. We retort, you deride.

if it’s a .50 cal black powder pistol, which it looks like, and it’s an 8-inch barrel (maybe longer, could be a 9 by the look of it) … I can shoot it one-handed. You probably could after a lesson.

Here’s the thing about recoil: the weight of the firearm, if the firearm is properly made, balances the recoil. That’s why Quigley’s rifle was 5 feet long with an octagon barrel (that rifle weighs between 18 and 20 pounds; it’ll kick about like a .22 — and .22s do kick, don’t let anybody tell you they don’t — centerfire long rifle, rather than a .22 rimfire). The M-60 machine gun is my favorite ground weapon ever, period, for exactly this reason: the weight of the weapon is exactly balanced by the force of the recoil. While I’ve got ammo, I can just stand there and hold the trigger back. When I run out, the weapon will nose forward, and take me with it … which could be not such the good thing, as I have the same glide pattern as an unpowered B-52 (like a falling brick).

Is it likely that the kid did this by himself? I dunno; it’s Alabama. It’s entirely possible. Is it also entirely possible that he had the help of an adult with a rifle? Absolutely. Like they say, quien sabe?

More importantly, that looks like about three quarters of a ton of rapidly-decaying pork, and if he chased it 3 hours and put 8 rounds in it, the meat won’t be worth a damn, which means, essentially, it’s a waste.

Howsomesoever, comma, in the long run … it’s a good thing, because feral hogs spread disease, run out native species, and destroy the environment — and that looks like a bulldozer-size example.

As I recall the feral pigs were ultimately blamed for the e coli in spinach from the area of CA where that particular outbreak of food poisoning occurred.

Coincidentally, I got chatting with some one (while getting the auto checked out) who traps wild pigs for a large campus of Texas Instruments near here and claimed he gets 20 a week. It’s spring, and they’re littered out too. He gets lots of requests for the bacon. And it’s a lot of work, so he usually tells the requestor that they’re welcome to take it on for themselves.

Wild/feral pigs are very dangerous.

Ruth

Here’s the link on feral hogs, spinach, and e coli.

Chattanooga, as one would expect [mutters “Coptix”], has a “rich history” of feral hogs.

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Just sayin’.

Incidently, pigs are omnivores, and a pig that actually was this big would probably take down occasional trailer park wildlife.

But somehow, you never hear stories about feral pork eating red-staters, just about feral red staters eating pork.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

You read the story; the kid’s from a Christian school!

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Did anyone get out their magnifying glass and check the woods for a sleestak? They wear camo you know. I realize this isn’t TN, but you never know.. ;)