Activists hit feral pig hunt

ANIMAL activists are bristling over a photo of two Katter’s Australian Party MPs standing triumphantly over a mound of dead pigs.

Hill MP Shane Knuth posted the image of himself and Member for Kennedy Bob Katter on Facebook at the weekend, sparking a war of words between rural folk and city dwellers.

The photo, taken near Innisfail, was accompanied by the words: “Bob Katter and I are now at the Currajah hotel pig hunt with the firsts ( sic) team bringing in more then ( sic) 29 pigs with another 14 teams to weigh in.”

Some of the online criticism labelled the politicians “disgusting”, “arrogant pigs killing pigs”, along with the suggestion hunters habitually “release more” pigs into the wild when they run out of targets.

The denunciations were roundly howled down by commenters, and Mr Knuth himself was taking the criticism in his stride.

“Most of them are city dwellers that have never lived in rural and regional Queensland, and have little understanding of the impact feral pigs on our environment,” he said.

“I’d say 99.99 per cent were not from this region.”

The hunt brought in a total of 92 pigs at a weight of 3.7 tonnes, with the biggest boar weighing in at 107.5kg – just a few kilos shy of North Queensland Cowboys prop Matthew Scott.