Pigs in Australia

Last night I dreamed......

It's months after my parents have gotten back from Australia.  They have finally received a souvenir they bought while there.  It's a stuffed boar; like a taxidermy thing. It's very big, and it's animated.  I mean it moves and makes sounds. I wonder aloud whether that's because the manufacturers have given it animatronic abilities; or is the boar's soul trapped within?

Later I go to write a blog post about the boar.  I start by saying that my parents went to Australia last March (they did in real life).  But then I start thinking that a boar isn't really an Australian animal.  

I think MAYBE this was a dream within a dream thing.  I might have been writing a blog entry about my dream of the boar souvenir rather than writing about my parents actually getting the boar. But I'm not sure. 

I may become burned out of writing blog posts if I keep writing posts in my dreams as well.

I'm guessing there probably ARE boars in Australia, but I don't think they'd be indigenous. Let's see....

Here we go. Here's an article.

The piggies are causing problems. That doesn't surprise me. And it's estimated that there are 23 million of them.  There's about a pig per person.  Yikes. I wonder how that compares to the camel population in Australia.

Wait.  No. There's only 21 million humans living in Australia. So, there's more pigs. Plus, you'd also have to count the farm and zoo pigs. But then with humans, I don't think the 21 million includes all the tourists visiting.

Anyway, the pigs have the typical story. They are descendants of domestic pigs brought over by the Europeans.

This Australian animal control site has more information about the boars.  

It's estimated that they cause about 100 million dollars of agricultural damage a year.

I should probably take these statistics with a grain of salt. I mean how do you even count the pig population in the first place? Does someone walk around and do a census.  Hello little piggy.   Can you please tell me how many children you have? And what is your income level?  

The website lists ways that the pig situation is being handled. There's trapping, baiting, hunting, etc.   I hope that these deaths aren't in vain.  Hopefully, a lot of the dead pigs are being eaten! Jack and Tim had some wild boar when we went out for Jack's birthday lunch.

Oh.  Good.....

This article talks about how the pigs are being eaten, and how their meat can bring in a lot of money.  

I'm much more in support of this type of meat-eating; hunting animals that have an overabundant population. They have a nice life of freedom. Then they become our dinner. It's better than the sad, abused factory farm animals.   

I'm thinking maybe I should go back to eating meat....not factory farmed stuff, but hunted wild animals.  I don't have any ethical objections to that. For me, it's more.....

I don't really know what it is. 

So MAYBE I will.  If we go to one of those exotic meat restaurants, I might try a bite of boar, or something like that.  Maybe a rabbit?  Kangaroo?  I'll just have a bite or two because I've heard if you eat a lot of meat after being a vegetarian for awhile, you can make yourself sick.

I HAVE eaten one type of meat since being a vegetarian. I ate a mealworm. I'm TOTALLY in support of insect-eating. The mealworm didn't taste very good, though.  



What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there 
was life after death, and 
we could easily talk to our 
dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts