Kill the Pigs

The team of government agents armed with shotguns and a helicopter succeeded in its mission near Clinton Lake.

When it was all over, 25 wild pigs had been gunned down, tested for disease and carted away to an approved mass grave in Osage County.

“They were feral swine, which means they were domestic pigs that either got away from somebody or were intentionally released,” said Rob Ladner, a law enforcement officer and supervisor with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks in Topeka...

Over the past few years, wild pigs also had been a problem in Sumner County in south-central Kansas and in the Cimarron National Grasslands in western Kansas. About a hundred wild pigs were killed in the course of the week’s hunting, Ladner said.

Leave it to the federal government to waste tons of perfectly good bacon.

We had a feral hog out back a couple years ago, black as night and probably in the 300 pound range. My neighbor got him (after it nearly killed his dog) and traded the carcase to the local phone crew for a couple of telephone poles. They smoked it at their company picnic. Everybody wins.

I did rather enjoy Lulu's comment after the story, however:

Where is the sport from the Slaughtering-Industrial Complex? Using helicopter gunships to hunt down defenseless pigs trying to exist in a man made environment to carry on their bloodlines. The only reward is death from a helicopter. Just as freedom fighters and innocent civilians die in Iraq in a war based on lies and deceit. Ted Nugent should be proud.

Ted would have used a bow, and he would have eaten what he killed. Asking the government to be sporting about anything is like asking Lulu, I imagine, to share a nice, rare, steak with you.

Or asking Ted to turn it down...