SWARMS of pigs have been found with neon blue skin after ingesting life-threatening pesticides.
Officials warned other animals may also be contaminated including geese, deer and bears as hunters have been urged not to consume meat from any infected prey.
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The electric blue-skinned hogs were first reported in Monterey County, California in March when trapper, Dan Burton, discovered several wild pigs with blue fat and muscle.
He told LA Times: “It’s wild. I’m not talking about a little blue. I’m talking about neon blue, blueberry blue.”
The feral swine are thought to have ingested the rat poison from dyed bait or feeding off other infected species.
As omnivores, they eat anything from grass to other bits of animal matter.
The toxic chemical contains an anticoagulant Rodenticide Diphacinone which prevents blood clotting and causes internal bleeding.
It’s often dyed so it can be identified as poison.
Dan said his company found the infected animals when he was hired to trap and kill wild pigs that were disrupting farmers’ fields.
But, while many of the pigs were found contaminated, not all possessed the gruesome cobalt flesh, The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said.
This depends on how much of the pesticides they have consumed, it added.
More than one feeding is needed to “receive a toxic dose” but humans or animals who consume even small amounts of the chemical will start feeling its effect, according to a 2023 study.
This includes signs of lethargy – a state of tiredness, sluggishness, and lack of energy, often accompanied by a decreased level of consciousness.
An study in 2018 by the University of Nebraska also found that the rat poison was present in over eight per cent of the wild pigs and 83 per cent of bears.
News of the poisoned pigs comes as a woman was left with a life-threatening knee infection after being attacked by own rooster.
The 26-year-old, who kept birds at her home in Switzerland, initially thought nothing of the small graze on her right knee left by the angry bird.
She immediately cleaned and disinfected the wound before getting on with her day.
But by the following morning, her knee had swelled up, turned red and become so painful she was forced to rush to hospital.
Just a few months earlier, the unlucky woman had been treated in hospital with antibiotics after a cat bite.
On inspection, doctors at Canton Hospital Basel-Land in Liestal, Switzerland, spotted a tiny lesion just above her inner knee.
Writing in the BMC Infectious Diseases, the medics said the mark looked superficial at first.
They would later discover the rooster’s beak had punctured deep into the joint, causing serious internal damage.
