You guys see the size of this hog ?

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/25/mon...ion=cnn_latest The photo is deceiving in that the guy is an 11 year old kid.

Well the kid had some backup, but still....handgun hunting something like that? I would have used my biggest bore rifle - 8mm Mauser - and kept the bayonet on just for a backup.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

I can't believe it went on living so long and never found out. Woah, saw it here and on local news as well.

Scott

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Ah, the thrill of torturing an animal to death.

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Yeah, you gotta love the "I probably won't ever kill anything else that big." line .

Life just ain't worth livin' unless you kill something big.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Here's another photo, not quite as impressive looking as that first photo, must be some funky perspective maybe?

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Hey kid! There are elephants at the zoo! Is that big enough for ya?

Can you imagine the size of the strips of bacon off that hog? Homer would drool over that!

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That kid isn't exactly "skinny" himself...and at only 11 years old. Maybe he should lower his sausage consumption.

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After killing that thing, his sausage consumption will be going through the roof!

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Oh, so we AREN'T supposed to be looking at the kid?

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It's nice to see a father and son bonding over the hanging corpse of a half ton animal.

Brings back memories of me, my "Uncle Pablo" and mom.

Thems the days, thems the days.

ry

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Interesting. I saw the first picture (Post #1) in the NYC newspapers over the weekend. I showed to my father (a longtime hunter) and we had the usual discussions over the facts of the article...11-year old kid...50-caliber handgun...eight rounds...canned hunt...etc.

But I was absolutely overwhelmed by the size of the boar in the picture.

My wife laughed at me. She said you must be obsessed with big pigs. She reminded me that I had once paid $2 at a county fair to see a "1000-pound pig"! The pig I saw (who knows how much it really weighed...looked much closer to the pig in Post #6.

Bottom line. Now I'm starting to wonder if the picture in Post #1 was doctored? I hate to suggest it...but there's no way that boy could be standing up and leaning on that pig...if it is the size it is in Post #6! The wild boar in Post #1 looks positively prehistoric!

Look at the size of the kid's head to the pig's head in each of the pictures. There's something funky going on! I would take the "perspective" defense...but in each of these pictures the pig and the kid look to be in pretty close proximity to each other.

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I also saw the picture in yesterday's paper (before seeing this thread) and was shocked at the size of the thing.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

That's hunting. Animals do the same thing to other animals on the chase.

[on my soapbox]I love all of the indignation people have about hunting; especially ones (and I'm not addressing this at you, Jonny, because I don't know you or your living situation) that have moved into these sprawling housing developments on the very forests and farmland where these animals used to live. Why are deer eating your bushes? Because the habitat they used to live on is your neighborhood.

Hunting isn't the problem, it's the solution. Helps keep populations to sustainable levels for their shrinking habitats. Starvation is a far worse torture than a couple hour chase, which is unfortunate.[/off my soapbox]

That said, I did feel sort of bad about the boar. It's like the mythical fish that everyone purports to have almost caught at the local fishing hole. Anything that gets that epic deserves to die of old age.

EDIT: I just read the article in question, and how the boy and his father could have finished it off at any point. That being the case, I'm with Johnny 100%. That's cruel torture. Everyone that I know who hunts ALWAYS goes for the clean kill.

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That's probably beacuse they are "Hunters". I hate the fact that people consider themselves "Hunters" just because they can shoot a gun at an animal. I guarantee you that many animals are tortured because of idiots who think they are "Hunters".

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

I'm not about to make the kid with the .50 caliber hand-cannon do the truffle shuffle.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

That first picture, once you get beyond the initial awe (and horror) starts to look a bit strange, in light of the second one. It think the kid is standing much further back than the picture suggests. If he is leaning against the hog, then he must have disproportionately long legs...

--
H

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Let's just say that I considerably outgun him.....

"OK punk, eat your broccoli!"

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

I think you're right. Looking at it again, the kid is sitting/standing next to the tree, which also looks like it could be 4-5 feet behind the pig. The photographer would have chosen the camera angle that makes it look like the kid is leaning on the pig, when in fact he isn't (which a closer look at the picture seems to confirm). If that is the case, then there is clearly a distorted perspective going on, and the size of the pig fits more closely with the pic in post 6.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

I agree, in the first pic you can tell by the boy's posture that he has one of his leg's propped up on something (a stump perhaps) so I do think that he is a few feet behind the hog....but even in the second pic that pig is rather large, just not Mysterious Island large.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

HERE IS the original story I read from the New York Post.

It has more info about the kid's gun and the hunt (on a preserve) itself.

Chris & Kevin: It looks to me like the kid is leaning right on the damn thing. What is it that makes you think he's a few feet back? To me it looks like his left elbow is casting a shadow on the thing's fur. I can see it looks like his left foot is elevated the way his left shoulder is up high...but it still looks like he's resting both arms on the beast. I still think the darn thing looks doctored from a perspective perspective (?!).

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Several things:
1) You can see the top of his left knee, which is what his left elbow seems to be resting on

2) His right elbow is too low- if it was resting on the hog's back, it would be sunk further into the fur than you would naturally expect

3) He appears to be sitting beside the tree. Now if you look to the left and right of the pig, there seems to be some depth between the pig's position lying on the log and where the tree is. If he is really beside the tree, then he could easily be 4-5 feet back from the hog.

Of course, I could be wrong and it could be a doctored picture in other ways. Looking at it in the way that I described is one explanation that only requires clever positioning from the cameraman and posing kid. I leave it open to all guesses as I know only as much as everybody else.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

A: I agree that he's not leaning on the pig because it appears that he is resting his arm on his left knee.

B: I would be willing to bet that he is not beside the tree. He is definitely in front of it.

Most likely he is right behind the pig, leaning up on a rock or something.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

I don't think the first picture has been doctored in any way, I just think it is an optical illusion, the kid IMO is between the tree and the hog but not right up on the animal....sort of a forced perspective shot like FX people use in films.
I don't think it was intentional, otherwise why release the second pic showing the animal in it's true perspective next to the kid?

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Just for the sake of comparison and perspective, check out the photos, stories and supposed relative stats of these two:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/bighog.asp

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/hogzilla.asp -- the original "Hogzilla"...includes an update and info about this "Monster Pig" which also has its own website now (with a couple more photos which, to me, also appear to be rather suspicious, not for doctoring, but at least for "forced perspective"):

http://www.monsterpig.com/

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Quite a group! And I guess Dad didn't major in English composition in school.

========================

Another picture on monsterpig.com shows that there seems to be quite a distance between the tree and the pig (the one which shows a head-on shot of the boar with the kid and three adults behind it).

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

I don't think it looks doctored at all... It doesn't look like he's leaning on the thing though, and he looks even with the tree behind him... Still, that thing is HUGE!

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Not doctored, but not honest, either.

It reminds me of the photos of someone holding out his hand pretending to hold up the Tower of Pisa.

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We are closer together in our positions on hunting than you think. I do not hunt, wouldn't enjoy it. I would not support laws to outlaw hunting. I agree that starvation is a worse way to die than being shot by a hunter. I live in house on a lot where I'm sure there were trees bulldozed down where the deer and the antelope (to be poetic) used to play. In fact, we have deer coming to our back yard to eat the corn I put out for them.

It's my understanding there are more deer in the USA now than one hundred years ago, and that without hunting there would be mass starvation. So I do not oppose hunting.

However this animal was tortured to death. Look at the size of it, they used a pistol. Yeah, they wanted to see if they could do it with a pistol. They had more firepower available, just in case, but they used the pistol and they new it would take longer. It's a damn ugly pig, but it doesn't mean they had to torture it to death. They weren't practicing population control, they were trophy hunting.

I think that's what offends me about some hunting, the main end-goal is a trophy (which might be a stuffed specimen or just a photo). Sure, the human species has hunted since before modern man appeared, but they hunted to live and usually understood how important the prey was to them. I wonder how much respect that kid had for his prey, respect, not fear.

And why is it so necessary to be so obsessed about killing the biggest of the prey? Once again, it's for a trophy, not for the food. Like you said, when it gets that big, let it die of old age.

I almost forgot, when you say animals do the same thing when they hunt, I disagree. The lion catches its prey in the quickest way possible and kills it as quickly as it can. Unfortunately, that may not be as quickly as a bullet. Still, the lion is hunting to eat. I don't think it has any empathy for its prey but does not torture, though it is inflicting pain. The human hunter is aware it's inflicting pain, when it takes 3 hours, that's torture in my mind.

Re: You guys see the size of this hog ?

Absolutely. I hadn't read the article clearly when I posted my initial comments. I edited my post shortly afterward to address my changed position in light of the facts. I agree with you 100%. There's hunting, and then there's torture. This was definitely a case of the latter.