Why (Domesticated) Pigs are Pink

According to a recent article reporting on the work of geneticist Greger Larson, pigs developed their bright coat colors after domestication. When you think about it, this is really a no-brainer, as the coats of wild pigs and boar provide camouflage in the forest, and humans are the ones that created "breeds" that reflected what looked good to them over the long process of domestication. Accordingly, as Larson notes, the brightly colored coats reflect "the real human penchant for novelty." 

The study does reveal in detail the mechanism for changes to coat color: mutations to the gene melanocortin receptor-1 (MC1R). These mutations account for pigs that are black, or pink, or spotted, all colors and patterns that would have a hard time surviving in the wild. Interestingly, a pink pig doesn't produce any melanin, making pink a "default" color.

Today's picture is one of my own, of wild hogs corralled at the Ocmulgee Wild Hog Festival in Abbeville, Georgia. These suckers would be hard to spot in the woods, that's for sure. The New Scientist article summarizing work published in PL0S Genetics can be found here.

A Holiday Pig (Well, Wild Boar) Attack

According to the BBC (here), a 198 pound wild boar somehow got into a clothing shop in the French city of Poitiers, charging at customers and police before being taken out. Fifteen people were evacuated from the store, which was closed for two hours. While I'm sure there are better accounts in French, which I don't read, the BBC piece notes that for some reason wild boars were being relocated in the area by forestry workers. I, of course, thought of wild hogs yesterday on the drive to Hilton Head for the holidays, as we crossed the Ocmulgee River and traversed good wild hog territory.

Good luck with your own last minute holiday shopping, everybody...

Some "Monster Pig" Follow-up

Well I'm sure glad I used the word "supposedly" in my Wednesday post about Jamison Stone, the 11-year-old who purportedly bagged a wild hog even bigger than the mythical hogzilla. By the time I returned to my e-mail, I'd gotten one comment from P. Burns at Terrierman's Daily Dose (here) that pointed out that this was a canned hunt concocted by a brand new "pay to shoot" hunting club. I also had friends send me links to other articles that pointed out what was wrong with the photos of this "monster pig." For a good one from the folks at stinkyjournalism.org, click here. If you now look at the monsterpig.com site you'll find an interesting explanation from Jamison's father, who concedes that this "monster pig" came from a hog breeder and was sold to the "hunting preserve" where Jamison Stone shot it.

While a lot of interesting questions have been raised about this story, ranging from whether this was ethical hunting to the nature of the Stone's photographic trickery, no one has bothered to ask why the media was so interested in this story (and Hogzilla before it) in the first place. In other words, what is it about "big pigs" that is so interesting? While stories like these obviously fit into a long tradition of "tall tales" about hunting and the outdoors, I wonder how they are related to other representations of pigs and to pork consumption. Elsewhere I've written about the "saved from slaughter" narratives of pigs that have gotten away from slaughterhouses to be "pardoned" to a hobby farm, stories that, I suggest, serve to assuage our culture's anxieties about the eating of pigs. I'm still working to figure out what's going on with all the feral pig/wild hog stories out there. Perhaps part of their appeal is connected to the ways in which they transgressively point to the incompleteness of human mastery and dominion over these supposedly "domesticated" animals...

11-Year-Old (Supposedly) Bags a Monster Pig

While I was away several regular readers sent me links to the story of eleven-year-old Jamison Stone, who supposedly killed this 1,051 pound wild hog with a pistol. He shot on May 3rd, hitting it eight times with a .50-caliber revolver, chasing it for three hours before he could finish it off. They had to remove the wild hog, which was 9 feet 4 inches from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail, from the woods with a backhoe. If these claims are correct, Stone's trophy would be bigger than Hogzilla, killed in Georgia in 2004. I should add, however, that there's a lot of doubt about the authenticity of this photograph. You can find one of many of the original stories here. A representative article questioning whether this is a hoax here.

As mentioned before in this blog, a movie called The Legend of Hogzilla (official site here) is being filmed in Georgia. Jamison Stone has been offered a small part in it. Perhaps my favorite comment about this story comes from the ever-watchful Mr. Sidetable, who noted "who on earth gives their sixth-grader a .50-caliber pistol?"

Hogzilla, The Movie

Mr. Sidetable forwarded me an article (here) about the production of a low-budget indie horror film to be titled The Legend of Hogzilla that will use Chris Griffin, who shot the "real" hogzilla as its "hog expert." Apparently they want to use locals in the cast and crew, meaning I'll have to see if I can head back to Georgia and land a part in this production. That would be most excellent.

The photo to the left is of the original hogzilla, of course. As you may know, a subsequent investigation by National Geographic (here) determined that this beast was part wild boar and part feral domestic pig and weighed about 800 pounds, a far cry from the original claims. There's more about the photo and the story at Snopes.com (here), including a lovely image of a float at the first annual "Hogzilla Festival" in Alapaha, Georgia.