Australia's favourite feral fugitive has died in exile in Queensland after shaking off gun-toting authorities hot on his hooves for the past two years. Blackie, the bush pig, made headlines in 2004 when he was deemed a feral pest and Mackay City Council ordered he be shot on sight.The community rallied behind the beloved pig to have the order reprieved but to no avail. However, his owners refused to give up the 500kg porker they had rescued as a piglet after shooters killed its mother, and Blackie went underground.
He died this week of natural causes, aged 8, prompting owner Kerrie Barber to finally reveal his closely guarded hiding places over the past two years.
Ms Barber said Blackie had been harboured by friends at an Eton property, south-west of Mackay, for a year before being smuggled to her and her 12-year-old daughter Britney's new home 60km away at Calen, north-west of Mackay. "It was great to have him back," Ms Barber told The Daily Mercury newspaper today. "He lived in the cattle yard and walked on the 70 acres eating mangos.
"But we had to live with the fear someone would report him.
"If council received a complaint they could shoot him on sight."
A wake will be held for Blackie at the town's local pub tomorrow night. Britney will plant Blackie's favourite food - a mango tree - on his grave on their property to remember him.