Woman held hostage by pig

[ZenGum]

From the ABC:

A pig has turned on a woman who tried to look after it, effectively holding her hostage on a property in northern New South Wales.

Sixty-three-year-old Caroline Hayes says she has been unable to leave her Uki house to use the farm's outdoor toilet at times because the white pig is aggressive towards her.

Ms Hayes says the animal came from a home two kilometres away, but its owners could not handle it and let it loose in the rainforest.

She says she and her neighbours began feeding the pig, who they named 'Bruce', after it first showed up at their homes 10 days ago.

"When I found it, it had 15 ticks in its eyes which I actually took out," she said.

"One of its eyes it couldn't see out of, so I put cream in it and I fixed its back up, but apparently it's actually claimed my land and claimed my place."

Ms Hayes says the pig became aggressive when it wanted more food, recently biting her on the leg when she tried to go to the toilet.

"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 4 o'clock in the morning, actually head-butting my door," she said.

She says she locked herself into her house yesterday afternoon and was too afraid to get out until late this morning.

"This morning, I wanted to go to my toilet, which is outside. I opened up the door and the pig pushed me that hard, it pushed me back into my room, where I fell over," she said.

"I picked up a broom and poked him out with it and he snapped it in half with his mouth."

Even rangers from Murwillumbah Council have failed to capture the animal, which Ms Hayes claimed was as big as a shetland pony.



"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.

"They tried for a little while and they couldn't do it. They got him halfway in and he just backed off and went back to my dam, where he was having a lovely time in the water."

SNIP

Rangers will try to capture the pig today but Ms Hayes says she does not want to know what they plan to do with it.

"I haven't stopped crying because I'm a major animal lover and a vegetarian," she said.

Uki is in the North-Eastern part of New South Wales, where the "back to the land" alternative movement tends to head for, and the place is festooned with rainbow dolphins and wizard bongs.

Since it broke, the story has been all over the electronic media. The woman is doing radio interviews and talkback is active.

Today's developments are:

A large pig that has been terrorising a woman on the New South Wales north coast will be sent to a piggery after it is captured tomorrow morning.

SNIP

Pest Animal Ranger Len Hing from the Tweed Lismore Rural Lands Protection Board visited the animal today.

Mr Hing says while the pig is friendly, its large size makes it difficult to control it when it is hungry.



"He is a bald pig [weighing] about 80 kilos; I wouldn't like to see the pig go as a pet anywhere because he could become a potentially dangerous animal," he said.

The Rural Lands Protection Board says the pig will be removed tomorrow morning and relocated to a piggery.