Blue, Blue, my pig is blue...

[samhexum]

Dan Burton heard of pigs with electric blue meat in California years ago from an old-timer he used to hunt with, but he’d brushed it off as urban legend.

So when he cut open a dead wild pig in Monterey County, California, this past February, he was surprised to see blue fat— vivid, “7/11 slushie” blue—beneath the skin

The color came from the blue dye of rodent poison, he correctly suspected, specifically from anticoagulant rodenticide bait containing the chemical diphacinone. He tipped off the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which confirmed the presence of diphacinone and sounded the alarm to local hunters.

It wasn’t the first time.

Diphacinone is a restricted chemical in California, meant to be used only in specific circumstances for infestation control. The state tightly regulates anticoagulant rodenticides, but it doesn’t enforce a total ban. So it still shows up where it’s not supposed to be: in the bodies of many of California’s iconic animals, including condors, black bears, bobcats, and in the somewhat less beloved feral pigs.

 

Wild pigs are turning electric blue in California. Here’s why.

APPLE.NEWS

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Feral hogs with "slushie-blue" innards turned up in Monterey earlier this year—and not for the first time.