Those animals, man. They are totally out to get us.
I don’t think I’m being paranoid (anymore) when I say that the animal kingdom has thoroughly turned on us.
The evidence is stacking up and has been well documented on this website.
- Think badgers are cute little woodland creatures incapable of eating a midget porn star? Think again. Or chasing children? Nope. Or jumping out of the water and terrorizing adults. Wrong-o.
- Perhaps you believe sea lions are adorable, doe-eyed water friends who like to eat fish, not celebrity’s legs? Au contraire, mon frère.
- Are you entranced by the majestic wonder of an owl soaring through the air? Sure, that’s all well and good until it uses that impressive wind span to soar into attack mode on a running trail.
Do not get me started on sharks.
However, this little story out of Oregon definitely takes the animal kingdom revolt against humans to a whole other terrifying level. Blech.
“Authorities are investigating how a farmer in Oregon managed to be eaten by his own hogs.
A family member found what was left of Terry Vance Garner, 69, when they went to look for him a few hours after he’d left to feed his hogs – some of which weigh more than 700 lbs.
“For all we know, it was a horrific accident, but it’s so doggone weird that we have to look at all possibilities,” Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier told the Register-Guard newspaper.
Agreed, County District Attorney Frasier. That is doggone weird.
Frasier said the family member first noticed Garner’s dentures at the farm’s hog enclosure, then saw pieces of the man scattered around.
Pause. Eeeeewwwww. Continue.
The district attorney said Garner may have simply keeled over from a heart attack while feeding the animals. Then again, perhaps the hogs knocked him down, killed him and ate him, he added. There had been reports of the hogs behaving aggressively towards Garner before, even biting him once.
Or maybe someone else killed Garner and let the hogs dispose of the body. Frasier said he is also investigating the possibility of foul play.
Wow. This Frasier guy has got a whole lot of theories. He’s going to be doggone busy in the days and months ahead. Maybe he should call those Scooby Doo kids and get them on the case.
Garner’s brother Michael said the old farmer loved his animals, which he’d had since they were piglets and which helped him deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam war.
Michael said a sow bit Terry once, but only because he accidentally stepped on its piglet, killing it.
“He said he was going to kill it, but when I asked him about it later, he said he had changed his mind,” Michael told the paper.
That might be one of the saddest stories I’ve ever read. You’ve got the therapeutic animals, the Vietnam war, dead piglets, and missed opportunities that come back and haunt you all in three sentences. Dang.
John Killefer, who heads the Animal and Rangeland Sciences Department at Oregon State University, said killer hogs are unusual but not impossible, noting they “are more omnivorous than other farm animals.”
So here’s a couple of things I didn’t know – that hogs could get up to 700 pounds, that they could be called “killer,” and that they are “more omnivorous than other farm animals.” Speaking of which, could I please get a copy of that color-coded Farm Animal Omnivorous scale that Professor Killefer apparently has access to? I want to take it with me next time I go to a petting zoo.
I found this other, slightly more morbid story in the LA Times. The first quote kills me.
“All we know is he died some way, and the pigs ate him. Most of him,” Garner’s brother, Michael Garner, told the Los Angeles Times.
Garner, a Vietnam War veteran, raised the giant hogs — larger than most of those sold for food — and provided piglets as 4-H projects for local youths.
“He’s an animal lover. He couldn’t do anything else with them. He wouldn’t sell them to eat, or anything else,” his brother said.
I haven’t asked XFE what he thinks about this, but I will personally be dedicating my excesses at this year’s Porktober to the memory of poor ol’ farmer Garner. He lived a good life, met with a, erhm, disturbing end, and provided us all a lesson: eat your pigs before they eat you.
