'Legend of Lost Creek'
Fred had a good life but his ending was sad. Who could have ever written a story like his? Who would have believed that the “monster pig” of Lost Creek Plantation Hunting Preserve would make national news, first as a possible hoax and then because he wasn’t a wild boar at all. Fred was a farmyard animal.At 1,051 pounds and nine feet, four inches in length, Fred was a whopper. He loved to eat, obviously. What’s surprising was that his original owners, the Blissett family of Fruithurst, Ala., not far off Interstate 20 in a region of Southern Appalachia better known for NASCAR racing, let him grow so large.
He was a leviathan among hogs, a veritable hippo-sized porker. But, when he started walking through fences and throwing around his smaller porcine companions, the Blissitts decided Fred had to go.
The huge hog was no good as a breeder; he’d been allowed to grow too large for a meat hog. What could his owners do? They sold him to a hunting lodge. After all, Fred was scary when he popped his jaws in irritation for the feed trough not being full. His bulk was such that, if he could summon the strength to charge, he would be like a runaway compact car.
So, Fred was trucked off to a 200-acre, fenced hog-hunting preserve on the aforementioned Lost Creek Plantation, where he was released into the “wild.” We’ll never know whether Fred became acclimated to his new surroundings and made friends among the real Russian wild boars. The saga of the overweight porker came to an end too soon, but then the “legend” was born.
Four days later, an 11-year-old hunter named Jamison Stone made headlines when he shot Fred to death with a .50-cal. pistol. He shot Fred eight times, in fact, and chased the wounded animal for three hours before administering the coup-d’-grace. The ninth bullet put Fred down for good.
Jamison’s proud father posted photos of the gargantuan pig -- and the boy who snuffed him -- on a Web site (www.monsterpig.com). Immediately, the news blasted through digital space, eventually attracting the attention of major TV networks and print media.
The first debate was whether the photo of Fred and Jamison had been doctored. I saw the picture on an Internet site and immediately wondered, “What farm did that pig escape from?” I had no doubt it was real, but not a real wild hog. In my lifetime, I have hunted and killed feral hogs and Russian boars. Jamison’s “trophy” looked nothing like those animals. He looked like a farm animal with a thyroid gland problem.
Enter the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and an investigation of where the pig came from. I have good friends who work for the state’s wildlife enforcement agency, and I suspected something looked as fishy to them as it did to me.
In the meantime, the sports editor of The Anniston Star had started digging around. It didn’t take him long to ferret out the truth about poor old Fred. The hapless hog had been a Christmas present as a piglet. Fred was six weeks old when he was gifted by Phil Blissett to his wife, Rhonda.
Mr. Blissett came forward, he said, because he was offended by allegations that the photo of dead Fred was a hoax.
Jamison and his father were mortified that all the hoopla had been over a domestic pig with an eating disorder. Their media balloon was punctured; it was time for damage control; and Daddy Stone soon posted a clarification on www.monsterpig.com that they had believed the hog to be feral. State game enforcement officials said the Stones broke no law. The owners of the hunting preserve refused to comment.
But, the media circus did a lot of damage to the image of sport hunting. Animal right activists and anti-hunting groups stored ammunition enough to blast away for years. Debate raged over the ethics of fenced hunting operations. Hunters argued with other hunters over the right and wrong of preserve hunting versus fair chase. None of it needed to have happened.
Who I really feel sorry for is 11-year-old Jamison… and Fred. If the kid’s father had wanted to provide a hog hunt, there are plenty of unfenced areas – even public hunting lands – across Appalachia where real feral and Russian-strain pigs can be pursued. I love to hunt wild porkers in East Tennessee, and I’ve never paid for the privilege.
It’s shame. All the build-up, the booster-ism, the greed to get headlines and media attention was just plain… well, piggish.
Fred’s former owner stated the hog was too large and needed to be killed. Maybe so, but why didn’t he do it himself? Why would anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of animal husbandry let a three-year-old pig eat itself into such a state?
My theory is that Fred really was a pet. His owners couldn’t bring themselves to sell him for slaughter until he was too large for any sensible buyer. They had to have shoveled tons of food at Fred. I speculate the hog ate every crumb and eagerly popped his jaws for more… just like we relished the story of the monster pig until it began to taste bad.
