An Alabama taxidermist will preserve an animal he shot and killed himself: a massive, 820-pound wild hog.
Wade Seago told al.com he saw the hog in the front yard of his home in Samson, Ala. last week after his schnauzer, Cruiser, began barking at it. Seago said that he had never seen a hog that large, and was worried it could harm his family pet. So he fatally shot the hog three times with his .38 caliber revolver.
“By the time I got in a position to shoot, the hog was about 12 yards away,” Wade said. “Cruiser was out of my line to the hog so I fired.”
According to the Associate Press, Seago plans to mount the head and shoulders of the hog. He weighed the hog on large scales at a nearby peanut company.
In Alabama, feral hogs are a game animal that are known to create hundreds of millions of dollars of agricultural damage in the U.S. per year, al.com reports. People in the state can legally hunt wild hogs on private land.
“I didn’t think twice about taking down this hog,” Wade told al.com. “I’d do it again tomorrow.”
[al.com]
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Write to Julia Zorthian at julia.zorthian@time.com