Huge hog not feral after all, just 'Fred'

Rhonda Blissit and her husband Phil raised Fred the pig on their farm in Fruithurst, Ala., and sold it to the Lost Creek Plantation, where it was killed in a hunt four days later.

Rhonda Blissit and her husband Phil raised Fred the pig on their farm in Fruithurst, Ala., and sold it to the Lost Creek Plantation, where it was killed in a hunt four days later.

FRUITHURST, Ala. - The huge hog that became known as "Monster Pig" after being killed by an 11-year-old boy had another name: Fred.

Far from feral, the pig had been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the Lost Creek Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a 150-acre fenced area, the animal's former owner said.

Phil Blissitt told The Anniston Star in a story published yesterday that he bought the 6-week-old pig in December, 2004, as a Christmas gift for his wife, Rhonda, and that they sold it after deciding to get rid of all the pigs at their farm.

"I just wanted the truth to be told. That wasn't a wild pig," Rhonda Blissitt said.

Jamison Stone shot the huge hog during what he and his father described as a three-hour chase. They said it was more than 1,000 pounds and 9 feet long; if anything, it looked even bigger in a now-famous photo.

"We were told that it was a feral hog," Mike Stone told the Star, "and we hunted it on the pretense that it was a feral hog."

Telephone messages left with Lost Creek Plantation, were not immediately returned.

Jamison Stone rests his hand on the skull of the 1,051-pound hog he killed on May 3. The skull of an average-sized hog is farther left. The Jamisons were told the animal was a wild hog.

The Blissitts said they didn't know the hog was Fred until they were contacted by a game warden for the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, which said no laws were violated in the hunt.

Phil Blissitt said he became irritated when some said the photo of Fred was doctored. "That was a big hog," he said.