Dire Boars loose in Alabama

[Tetsubo]

I find it a little disturbing that a ten-year old has a .50 calibur handgun...

If I saw an animal like that, I'd let it live. It would be tragic if a squishy little animal like me killed an animal successful enough to grow that big.

I'm just jealous because I DON'T have a .50 pistol... I'd like a S&W 500 Magnum but they run $1200...

 

[Nyaricus]

That is a crazy big pig! I am seriously amazed at the sheer size of that thing.

WTF could something like that be eating to grow to that size? Landfill 'roids, or something

cheers,
--N

 

[MarkB]

"It feels really good," Jamison said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."

Am I the only one that finds the kids enthusiasm a little... disturbing? I'm not trying to imply that he is or will become a danger to anybody, in fact I'm sure he'll grow up and continue being an avid and responsible hunter, but all the same... That attitude is just plain disturbing.

I dunno, the line you quoted sounds more-or-less exactly like the aspirations of most D&D characters.

There actually are people that hunt boars with throwing knives.

Yikes, that is a little extreme. Boars with tusks are dangerous enough.

 

[Stormborn]

Ah, it was in LA (Lower Alabama). OK, now I am not suprised, just about anything can happen in LA once you leave the main road. Given that there are entire counties off the main road that is saying something. We get small wild and feral pigs around here and I live in suburb of the largest metropolitan area in the state.

I would make comments about hunting and other personal bits of info the story gives about the boy and his family but I am afraid they would get into political territory. I will say this: An animal this size, if it were to get off the game preserve, would likely kill several, proabally children, in a small Alabama community before sufficent force was arrayed against it. Nor is there any reasonable way to keep it confined save a large enclosed preserve, which would be expensive and physically difficult to maintain. It could have been moved, I suppose, but that too would have put lives at risk. In the end its just a pig -and likely a hybrid of wild and tame at that.

Also, wild porcine isn't terribly safe. Better to grind it up into sausage and cook it to death than make a lovely roast and kill all of your guests.

 

[Nifft]

Am I the only one that finds the kids enthusiasm a little... disturbing? I'm not trying to imply that he is or will become a danger to anybody, in fact I'm sure he'll grow up and continue being an avid and responsible hunter, but all the same... That attitude is just plain disturbing.

Yeah, I mean, he didn't even search the spleen for emeralds! That kind of carelessness means his DM will have to drop important plot-items in even more obvious places. Sheesh.

-- N

 

[Celebrim]

In the end its just a pig -and likely a hybrid of wild and tame at that.

That's what I was thinking. It's not a wild boar, what we call around here a 'Razorback'. It's obviously a hybrid of a wild pig and some sort of large domestic.

That's probably a large indicator of why the thing ran rather than charged. Most wild boars I'm familiar with merely get irritated if you hit them with a pistol round or buckshot.

Although it demythologizes the incident, I'm inclined to think that they've started deliberately breeding these things in the LA/GA region. This isn't the first monster pig killed in the area (there was an 800lb one a few years ago), and the fact that this was on a game preserve sets off more warning bells.

Not that there is anything wrong with breeding monster pigs for food and sport, but it makes me think I don't have the full story.

 

[dougmander]

Although that's certainly a big pig, I think forced perspective (making the boy seem closer to the pig than he really is) plays a major role in the "wow" factor for that photo. He's crouched several feet behind the pig, but look at it casually, and you'd think he was leaning on it. Still a big animal, though.

It's the same camera trick used in the LOTR films to make the "big people" larger than the hobbits.

 

[Green Knight]

Am I the only one that finds the kids enthusiasm a little... disturbing? I'm not trying to imply that he is or will become a danger to anybody, in fact I'm sure he'll grow up and continue being an avid and responsible hunter, but all the same... That attitude is just plain disturbing.

What's so disturbing about it? He accomplished something that few others get to experience. This 10-year-old kid went to hunt pheasants and ended up bagging a monster boar all by himself. Let's say the kid were a pitcher in his elementary school softball team, and he got the chance to pitch against a Major League baseball player, and successfully struck him out. Would you think it was disturbing if he felt good about it? What if the kid liked to climb fake rock walls, and got the chance to climb a real mountain, and succeeded in climbing the mountain? Would his enthusiasm there be disturbing, too?

Difference here, though, is that baseball players get struck out all the time. Mountains get climbed all the time. But how many people can lay claim to having singlehandedly killed a boar that huge? For a 10-year-old kid to be able to say he has, well, that's an accomplishment, and it's something he should be proud of.

 

[thedungeondelver]

It can't just be giant with you people, can it? Noooo...has to be dire. Did it have a prestige class or metamagic feats too?

 

[Jupp]

"It feels really good," Jamison said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."

Sorry but this is just sick and disgusting. His parents deserve a fair beating. Letting a kid kill an animal for sports and fun....