Australia Forum

Wanderer · #1 (**permalink**) 09-23-2008, 05:32 AM

Well the US might have Texas or what's left of it and UKI (not the United Kingdom) has Bruce

Quote:

A pig the size of a Shetland pony found in northern NSW rainforest has turned on its rescuer and kept the woman hostage in her own home.

A distressed Caroline Hayes has told abc.net.au she has not even been able to use her outdoor toilet because the pig she named Bruce bit her on the leg and headbutted her when she ventured out.

It was a different story when she and her neighbours in the town of Uki near the NSW-Queensland border found the pig 10 days ago after it was let loose by previous owners who couldn't control it.

Ms Hayes, 63, picked out the ticks that were leeching on Bruce and applied a medicinal cream to the bites but he showed his gratitude by aggressively pursuing more food and claiming the land as its own.

"It started getting very pushy, started pushing me around, so I started to get a bit frightened, until the stage that it started knocking on my door at four o'clock in the morning, actually head-butting my door," she said.

Bruce rummaged through the property's garage and ripped up a king size mattress it found inside before turning Ms Hayes's dam into his own personal swimming pool.

He also defied Murwillumbah Council rangers who tried to remove him from the property.

"The rangers came out to my house yesterday with a dog cage and this pig is that big, it's like trying to put an elephant in a dog cage," Ms Hayes said.

Rangers are scheduled to return to the property today to make another attempt to remove Bruce and Ms Hayes — "a major animal lover and vegetarian" — says she doesn't want to know what they do with it.

Be a few (HAM) burgers there if Macca or Jack want to get interested.

And UKI btw is got to via a lovely drive up the Tweed river valley, and further inland in Queensland there is in deed a Texas as well.

mike · #2 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 02:02 AM

That was a funny story, but it was on every channel's evening news, even the ABC. Australian nightly news covers such a small percentage of what's going on in the world, it really makes you wonder.

Wanderer · #3 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 02:36 AM

Yep Mike, if not Iraq/Afghanistan (anywhere else Oz is involved) the US financial market or Kev globetrotting again, it can take another global catastrophe or a Sara Palin (and then only briefly) to get onto most local news.
Though some do monitor for breaking news, the Finnish school shooting being referred to late last night on Ten.
And SBS is not too bad, and I've taken to watching it more and more.

My claims for Bruce might have been a bit outrageous for there was allegedly a 400 lb (but a wild boar) hunted down in Alabama I think it was earlier this year
Someone also reported there is supposed to be more feral pigs in Oz than humans and that was not counting more than a few fellas! - I was staying at Capetrib a few years back and needing an early morning pit call after some jugs, I do the quick dash to block and on john and ears becoming accustomed to night noises, I hear all this snorting (hoping crocks don't snort) and looking into MN+blackness see bushes waving about - turns out to be a couple of wild pigs that would've been about Bruce's size

Thommo (the wild Lillee era bowler) used to go out western NSW and had a hobby of running them down.

And then they can be quite accomodating:

Quote:

It's not quite lions lying down with lambs but it's pretty close.

A pig at a farm in eastern Ukraine is nursing three tiger cubs abandoned by their mother.

Noviy Channel TV says the tigers were born last week at a zoo in Dnipropetrovsk, but their mother refused to care for them.

Zookeepers took the animals to a nearby farm where a sow had recently given birth to about a dozen piglets. The pig apparently had no objections when the tiger cubs were started nursing alongside the piglets.

Zoo director Yuriy Aksenych said in televised comments that the mother tiger appears to have lost her feral instincts after years in captivity.

On the Gold Coast, we had a councillor who went on to become a state MP, and he was an older bachelor who lived with his mum and they had a pet pig (on the GC) - you know what they say about people looking like their pets - a little truth there too!

Ratbag Oz · #4 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 09:47 AM

Shetland Pony huh? and also described on the news I saw it as "a feral pig" whereas most obviously to anyone that had seen both it was a domestic pig, slightly wild or not... and certainly didn't seem very fussed about all the attention from the visiting cameraman. A pet gave it's owner a bruise... yup big deal that is....

and I beleive this might be the tiger you were speaking of, though this has now happened several times, the piglets are wrapped in the deceased tiger cubs pelts to associate them for the mum. All are now grown and no problems. In another case piglets were swapped with cubs, and the pig raised the tigers and Visa Versa.

Wanderer · #5 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 10:50 AM

Yes, Bruce doesn't look as though he has been on too sparse a pasture roughing it out in the bush - but good rich country about UKI.

Good pic too missus and there wasn't a pic that went with the Ukrainian story but story description has reverse style, tiger cubs abandoned by mum and they were taken to Mrs Babe on a local farm.

I've got a pic from another story a while back that had a Golden Retriever mothering cubs, so yep some animals will look after oneanother a lot better than some humans - http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=606794.

I had put article down in travel pics, and still working on my photobucket/posting pics skills.