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lederhosenA few years back there were photos doing the rounds of an eleven-year-old boy standing behind what appeared to be a gigantic wild boar that he'd just shot. My reaction at the time was pretty much "ho hum, yet another hunter discovers the wonders of forced-perspective photos".
I came across the sequel today; turns out the story was a lot sleazier and crueller than I'd guessed.
Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries quickly revealed that it was a farm animal, and not a wild boar, that was shot in the 150 acre low-fence area. It was an overfed pet, and gentle domestic Duroc swine, named Fred. My investigation uncovered the darker tale that went mostly unreported by mainstream media.
The owner of Lost Creek Plantation-- the canned hunting operation-- Eddy Borden, along with owners of Southeastern Trophy Hunters Keith O’Neil and Charles Williams, modeled their marketing scheme after the enormously successful Hogzilla shooting in Georgia that National Geographic turned into a 2005 record-breaking documentary. Their flimflam plan was to buy a dark hairy fat farm hog, and sell it to a greenhorn as a “once in a lifetime” opportunity. The advertisement promised that a 1,000 pound monster boar was “roaming the wilds” of the Lineville plantation even before they picked Fred up from the farm.
To save face, Mike Stone, Jamison’s father, continued to tell a heroic tale about what happened on May 3, 2007. However, the ugly bottom line still showed --and the public noticed. Mike Stone said that for three hours, Jamison repeatedly wounded the hog with no kill shot. Stone told me that a local TV station said to the hunters that "if they wanted a news story, only the boy could shoot the pig-- no adults." So the three professional hunters, Borden, Williams and O’Neil, armed with rifles, stood by for hours and watched as the hog eventually bled out in order to, ultimately, promote their hunting business.
I came across the sequel today; turns out the story was a lot sleazier and crueller than I'd guessed.
Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries quickly revealed that it was a farm animal, and not a wild boar, that was shot in the 150 acre low-fence area. It was an overfed pet, and gentle domestic Duroc swine, named Fred. My investigation uncovered the darker tale that went mostly unreported by mainstream media.
The owner of Lost Creek Plantation-- the canned hunting operation-- Eddy Borden, along with owners of Southeastern Trophy Hunters Keith O’Neil and Charles Williams, modeled their marketing scheme after the enormously successful Hogzilla shooting in Georgia that National Geographic turned into a 2005 record-breaking documentary. Their flimflam plan was to buy a dark hairy fat farm hog, and sell it to a greenhorn as a “once in a lifetime” opportunity. The advertisement promised that a 1,000 pound monster boar was “roaming the wilds” of the Lineville plantation even before they picked Fred up from the farm.
To save face, Mike Stone, Jamison’s father, continued to tell a heroic tale about what happened on May 3, 2007. However, the ugly bottom line still showed --and the public noticed. Mike Stone said that for three hours, Jamison repeatedly wounded the hog with no kill shot. Stone told me that a local TV station said to the hunters that "if they wanted a news story, only the boy could shoot the pig-- no adults." So the three professional hunters, Borden, Williams and O’Neil, armed with rifles, stood by for hours and watched as the hog eventually bled out in order to, ultimately, promote their hunting business.
