Mysterious wave of death strikes the Bahamas famous swimming pigs – SFGate

Ben Guarino, The Washington Post

A mysterious wave of deaths recently struck Big Major Cay, the uninhabited Bahamas island famous for its tourist-friendly swimming pigs.

Up to half of the pig colony died and the bodies were tossed into the sea, according to reports from over the weekend. Early investigations could not identify an explicit cause of death.

Wayde Nixon, a Bahamas man who brought the pigs to the island decades ago, suggested that tourists killed the animals with a lethal diet. With unrestricted access to the pigs, visitors had been seen giving the animals junk food as well as booze.

"We had the government vet in there [and] examined them all thoroughly," Nixon told the Nassau Guardian. Seven or eight pigs died, he said, leaving about 15 alive. The ones that survived appeared to be healthy.

Kim Aranha, president of Bahamas Humane Society, indicated to the Nassau-based newspaper Tribune 242 that there were fewer pigs remaining on the island than initially reported.

Photo: Barcroft/Barcroft Media Via Getty Images

A pig swimming in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known locally as "Pig Beach", the brown and pink feral adult pigs and piglets are fed by locals as they trotter along the tropical beaches. After lounging in the sun the piglets run into the water and even sometimes swim out to incoming boats. (Photo by Eric Cheng / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

A pig swimming in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known locally as "Pig

View of pig at Island Routes Caribbean Adventure Tour during Sandals Emerald Bay Celebrity Getaway And Golf Weekend on June 3, 2016 in Great Exuma, Bahamas. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Sandals)

View of pig at Island Routes Caribbean Adventure Tour during Sandals Emerald Bay Celebrity Getaway And Golf Weekend on June 3, 2016 in Great Exuma, Bahamas. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for

Two swimming pigs off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas.

Two swimming pigs off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas.

The famous swimming pink pigs at Staniel Cay on June 15, 2012 in the Islands of the Exumas, The Bahamas. (Photo by EyesWideOpen/Getty Images)

The famous swimming pink pigs at Staniel Cay on June 15, 2012 in the Islands of the Exumas, The Bahamas. (Photo by EyesWideOpen/Getty Images)

A swimming pig off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock to their beach to see the extraordinary site of wild pigs making a splash in the beautiful turquoise sea. One bright pig called Plato has become so famous he now stars in his own book, The Secret of Pig Island, where his exploits have been captured by photographer and ocean guide, Jim Abernethy, 52, from Florida. As this collection of photographs from the book shows, the pigs are remarkably well adapted to their beach bum lifestyle of frolicking the water and lazing on the sand. (Photo by Jim Abernethy / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

A swimming pig off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock to

A swimming pig off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock to their beach to see the extraordinary site of wild pigs making a splash in the beautiful turquoise sea. One bright pig called Plato has become so famous he now stars in his own book, The Secret of Pig Island, where his exploits have been captured by photographer and ocean guide, Jim Abernethy, 52, from Florida. As this collection of photographs from the book shows, the pigs are remarkably well adapted to their beach bum lifestyle of frolicking the water and lazing on the sand. (Photo by Jim Abernethy / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

A swimming pig off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock

A pig on the beach on the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock to their beach to see the extraordinary site of wild pigs making a splash in the beautiful turquoise sea. One bright pig called Plato has become so famous he now stars in his own book, The Secret of Pig Island, where his exploits have been captured by photographer and ocean guide, Jim Abernethy, 52, from Florida. As this collection of photographs from the book shows, the pigs are remarkably well adapted to their beach bum lifestyle of frolicking the water and lazing on the sand. (Photo by Jim Abernethy / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

A pig on the beach on the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock to

A pig (Sus scrofa domestica) swimming in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known locally as "Pig Beach", the brown and pink feral adult pigs and piglets are fed by locals as they trotter along the tropical beaches. After lounging in the sun the piglets run into the water and even sometimes swim out to incoming boats. (Photo by Eric Cheng / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

A pig (Sus scrofa domestica) swimming in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike.

Mother and baby pig on a beach in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known locally as "Pig Beach", the brown and pink feral adult pigs and piglets are fed by locals as they trotter along the tropical beaches. After lounging in the sun the piglets run into the water and even sometimes swim out to incoming boats. (Photo by Eric Cheng / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

Mother and baby pig on a beach in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known

Mysterious wave of death strikes the Bahamas famous swimming pigs

"I understand there are seven or eight pigs still alive," Aranha said, though she said this was about equal to the number of deaths. Veterinarians collected samples of the dead pigs, but it was unclear how long a laboratory analysis would take.

"It's really a mystery as to what killed these beautiful animals. I believe most of the carcasses were in the ocean," Aranha told the Tribune. "It could just be a horrible accident where they ate something poisonous. It could be malicious but I don't really see why someone would go out of their way to hurt those lovely animals."

She added that there were "silly sailors" who were known to try to get the pigs drunk. But tour operators out of Nassau treated the animals with respect, she said.

Part of the Exuma island chain, Big Major Cay, also known as Pig Beatch, sits in the Caribbean Sea to the southeast of Nassau. Until the deaths, the cay had been billed as a sort of porcine paradise. The pigs dog-paddled through the crystal sea, drank from the island's spring of fresh water and got fat on a steady supply of food brought by tourists, who visited the island by the boatload.

But selfie-happy tourists were not the only indignities that the four-legged residents survived in recent years. The pig colony endured an invasion of bikini-clad reality show contestants during an episode of "The Bachelor." The pigs had a brief cameo in the 2013 music video for "Timber," the Pitbull dance-pop number featuring Ke$ha. Fueled by celebrity visits, a feature on NBC's "Today Show" and a beach made for Instagram, the pigs' popularity expanded.

So, too, did their origin stories. Ancient mariners had left the pigs behind on the island, some said. The cache of would-be pork was forgotten, then rediscovered. Or perhaps the beasts were the only living remainder of a crashed pirate ship. That foreigners had accidentally released pigs into the Bahamian wilds was not an alien narrative. Feral boars on the Great Inagua Island, to the south of Pig Beach, were descendants of pigs housed in a mid-1700s French garrison.

The truth, according to the "Today Show," was that the swimming pigs were the result of a more recent fable. When fears about the cataclysmic Millennium bug reached a fever pitch in the late 1990s, two farmers, fearing that food supplies would crash along with computers, bought the pigs and raised them on the island.

After the pigs were discovered dead over the weekend, Nixon, one half of the Y2K farmer pair, lamented that the Pig Beach phenomenon had spiraled out of control.

"Right now it's blowing out of proportion with people, anybody bringing food there, anybody doing what they [want to] do," Nixon told the Nassau Guardian. "We have people coming there giving the pigs beer, rum, riding on top of them, all kind of stuff."

The Bahamas government has now barred tourists from feeding the pigs. Nixon sought support from the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism to restrict visitors from getting too close to the pigs. Establishing a safe viewing distance would still allow tourists to photograph the famous swimming pigs, he said, while protecting the animals that remain.

Continue reading here:

Mysterious wave of death strikes the Bahamas famous swimming pigs - SFGate