Never a boaring day!
Brooklynites were left baffled by flyers plastered around Prospect Park claiming a lost pet pig had run away from its owner and was wandering the borough.
The posters, emblazoned with the words “Lost Pet Boar,” started appearing on trees and lampposts, mostly along the western edge of the park, last weekend, and immediately attracted scrutiny on social media.
According to the flyers, a “beautiful Berkshire boar” named Sunshine, weighing in at a whopping 353 pounds, was last seen near Park Slope’s 9th Street entrance to Prospect Park.
The three-and-a-half foot long hog is covered in “velvety” black hair and responds to her name and offerings of bananas and peanuts, the poster says.
heads up, park slope pic.twitter.com/2szpOUjQlT
— John DeVore (@JohnDeVore) May 21, 2023
Sunshine’s owner — who is presumably named Elijah Edward Smith, based on the email address listed on the poster — is offering a “HUGE REWARD” to the person who locates the animal. Smith did not respond to requests for comment. His voicemail message noted that any information regarding the boar is helpful, especially if a caller has spotted her out in the wild.
A representative for the Prospect Park Alliance, which manages the more than 500-acre greenspace, said the organization has not received any information about a pig, lost or found.
According to the British Pig Association, Berkshire pigs are friendly and known for their “great personality” and “some of the tastiest meat around.”
Some Brooklynites doubted the veracity of the flyers, positing that they were just jokes or even performance art. One commenter pointed out the photo of Sunshine doesn’t look much like a Berkshire pig, and that the poster uses the wrong terminology — a “boar” usually refers to a male pig, but, based on the text on the poster, Sunshine is a girl.
“Doubt it’s real,” a local said on Reddit. “But it IS Brooklyn, so who the f–k knows.”
Nothing is out of the question in Kings County — an alligator was hauled out of the lake in Prospect Park just a few months ago, and a Good Samaritan captured and returned a lost pet chicken to her Ditmas Park home back in 2018. A Park Slope firehouse even made a piglet named Penny its unofficial mascot after a firefighter adopted her as a pet for his daughter.
