The wild pig, known as “Hogzilla” weighed 1050 pounds when it was shot by the boy last May:
When a 1,000-pound wild hog was shot last year in Alabama, 11-year-old hunter Jamison Stone couldn’t have been happier. But his prize photos of the 9-foot-long boar have continued to cause a stink, one the Stone family can’t seem to shake.
The backlash has only grown worse, with one group calling for the hunters’ prosecution.
“It is unbelievable what my family has been through over the past year,” Mike Stone, Jamison’s father, told the Birmingham News. “It has taken 10 years off my life.”
An online petition has garnered more than 800 signatures from around the world demanding prosecution for what activists are calling animal cruelty, according to the newspaper.
Not surprisingly, some of the Hogzilla sympathizers have seen fit to threaten the young hunter’s life:
“You should see some of the emails and hear some of the calls we have received,” Jamison’s father said. “They are explicit. They tell how they are going to kill my son, like cutting his head off.
“It has had us scared to death … All I did was to take my son on a legal hunting trip.
Animal rights wackos are some of the scarier left wing crazies out there, imo.
UPDATE:
Rhonda R Shearer, the New York City organizer who has investigated the incident, has weighed in here, in the comments to clarify her role in the story, which I actually didn’t cover.
In a Birmingham News Article she says the pig suffered a “cruel and painful death,” the result of 16 shots from a low-velocity weapon, nine of which hit the hog.
The Birmingham News also reports that the hog was not in fact, “wild” but was a domestic pig that had been released into the wildlife preserve for the purpose of hunting. This is a legal practice:
That is how preserves maintain a steady supply of hogs for hunters, along with hogs that are born wild.
It should be noted that domestic hogs can be every bit as dangerous as wild hogs. My mother tells a story from her youth about a cousin who lived on a farm and fell into the pig sty. She was —well…I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t pretty.
Furthermore:
A Web-based petition has drawn 805 signatures from around the world, calling for prosecution in the case. Shearer says she did not initiate the petition but did provide the information that outraged some online readers enough to add their signatures.
County and federal attorney’s offices have investigated the case and declined to bring charges after concluding no laws were broken. The state attorney general’s office said it did not have time to investigate before the statute of limitations ran out.
The enforcement division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries of the Alabama Department and Conservation and Natural Resources also investigated at Shearer’s request and concluded no state conservation laws were broken.
All the stuff she writes about the whole thing being some kind of PR stunt is neither here nor there to me, just an interesting side-note.
The point of this post is that animal rights wackos are threatening and harassing the boy and his family.
Hat tip: Crime Scene KC
UPDATE: (August 10):
Ms. Shearer notifies me that there is growing evidence that there were never any threats made to Mike Stone and his son:
New evidence indicates that they are no death threats –facts point to its another hoax brought to you by the same guy, Mike Stone, who gave the world fake photos and a fake wildlife adventure in the first place.
I found out that the Birmingham News never called the Birmingham FBI bureau or the Pickens County Sheriff’s dept. to ask if the death threats were real and reported by Stone –before publishing it as a fact.
I will report on my findings soon, but let me give you a hint.
There is no investigation– now in 2008 or before in 2007–by the agencies who would be responsible for following up with threats against his child that so “scared” Mike Stone “to death”. Stone is quoted by the Bham News: “You should see some of the e-mails and hear some of the calls we have received,” he said. “They are explicit. They tell how they are going to kill my son, like cutting his head off. “It has had us scared to death … All I did was to take my son on a legal hunting trip.”The Sheriff’s dept–who would deal with such reports about such crimes for citizens who live in Pickensville Alabama (like Mike Stone)–have never heard about ANY death threats anywhere in the county–let alone from Mike Stone.
Here is her post about the fauxtography employed to make the pig look bigger than it was.
I’m pretty convinced that this Mike Stone character is the shyster, she has been claiming he is, and that should be brought out.
Nice Deb 
