Year's Swelling Hog Prices Drive Porcine Crime Wave

[n2doc]

By DOUGLAS BELKIN

Thieves are going hog-wild along the border of Iowa and Minnesota.

About 1,000 pigs have been stolen from at least three counties in past weeks, say authorities, with soaring prices a likely motive.

Farmers are locking their buildings and some wonder if one of their own is behind the crime wave.

The pig rustlers back trucks up to unguarded hog houses that contain thousands of pigs, according to police. They load up a few dozen animals at a time into a trailer and drive off under the cover of night.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904563904576589141147155016.html

[TheWraith]

1. Get a gun and go south.

There's lots and lots of huge-ass wild hogs down there. And they're considered a nuisance animal, so there's no limit.

[Kolesar]

3. I saw that on a TV show. What a fright.

The farmers have to travel pretty far to ambush them. Apparently, the meat tastes like peanuts.

[TheWraith]

5. Never encountered one myself, but yeah, they're pretty nasty creatures.

And they do terrible damage to the local environment. They root up everything, and grow insanely large. Some have been recorded at over 1,000 pounds.

Even crazier: some people actually go out there and hunt the damned things with REVOLVERS. Granted, revolvers that are as powerful as a .223 rifle, but still...

[MadHound]

2. Not just hogs,

But cattle rustling has become a problem as well. Of course this all happens out in the country and thus it gets no play.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

4. This from the comments section is worth considering...

""started the company with his parents in 1994"...bless your heart, that tells the story right there. If you and your family had been doing this since 1884 you would have found out by now that hogs are very hungry all the time. It is not unusual for a group of 1,000 hogs "sequestered" together to eat 10-20 of their roommates under certain conditions. And let me tell you from experience...they will eat EVERYTHING. Don't worry about looking around for an ear or a knuckle....they will eat EVERYTHING. But if reporting it as a theft helps with any insurance claims then more power to you and good luck with your new venture."

Makes more sense than someone going through the trouble of stealing a couple dozen hogs and getting a 25 year sentence.

[Recovered Repug]

6. The "certain conditions" are the hogs are overcrowed and

starving - not common on modern farms. The number taken each trip could depend on 1) the size of the trailer and 2) the size of the hogs. The thieves would want to get only those that they can sell right away.