Miss Bacon Busters 2013

This image of a wild boar is not from the video featured below.

Melbourne Pig Save generally focuses on the plight of pigs suffering in the food production system. Here's a story of pigs who are killed for reasons other than meat production.

The five-minute video shown below is from the item "Wild pig hunters compete for Miss Bacon Buster title" from SBS Television's "The Feed" program and website.

Here's an extract from the website, featuring Jade Hammond from Walgett, New South Wales, Australia:

"Jade Hammond seems like your average 23-year-old. She's married, has a job as a pharmacy worker, and like many regional Australians she loves to go hunting. In fact in 2013 Jade's hunting efforts earned her the title of Miss Bacon Busters 2013. Women from across Australia are encouraged to hunt for wild pigs and send their best pics in to Bacon Busters magazine to feature in a section known as Babes and Boars. The best hunters then go into the running for the Miss Bacon Buster title."

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The story and comments may seem impossible for those of us in the animal rights world to rationalise, so I'll just quote some extracts for readers to consider. I also recommend that you watch the video to add some context to these extracts. I don't accept Jade's reasons for killing wild pigs (relating to crop damage), but you can decide for yourself after watching the full video.

"I love pig hunting because it's an adrenalin rush for me. You're proud of your dogs when they find that pig."

"After we kill the pig, we'll leave it there. The chillers are shut now, so we can't sell them, so usually they're just dragged off the paddock and left there for other animals to eat."

Some words from Clint Magro, editor of Bacon Busters Magazine:

"Well Jade won Miss Bacon Buster 2013. It was a hard contest to pick a winner in, but she's got a great smile. Yeah, some of the photos were really good. She catches some really good pigs."

"It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's just something we live with. You know, you hear the news every day, you've got rapists, people killing people, murders and bashings and things like that, but I sort of think that if I can bring my kids up doing something like this, out of harm's way and it's not affecting anyone, well I don't see the problem with it."

Now back to Jade:

"That pig on the front cover is the first one I ever stabbed, and I'm pretty proud of that one."

"I feel sorry for them sometimes. Like, we might get a sow, and when they squeal, the piglet will come running back and I feel really sorry because, you know, it's their mum, but we're doing it for a reason, we're not doing it for fun."

It seems appropriate to conclude with a quotation from Count Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910), Russian novelist, poet and ethicist:

"'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings. This commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai."

Source: SBS, The Feed, "Wild pig hunters compete for Miss Bacon Buster title" by Joel Tozer, 13 Feb 2014
Image: Boar in the wild © Janusz Pieńkowski | Dreamstime.com